


Grasping at Shadows

by puella_nerdii



Category: Suikoden II
Genre: Dark, Drama, Gen, Retelling, War, the abyss stares back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-10-04
Packaged: 2017-11-08 17:45:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 38,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puella_nerdii/pseuds/puella_nerdii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'll stop this war my own way. No, I'll never let a war like this break out on this soil again. And as you say, I'm prepared to be dishonored, if need be. Nevertheless..." - Suikogaiden 1, Chapter 2</p>
<p>Jowy Atreides wants to slay a monster and bring down a nation. But he has to strike in the right place at the right time, and strike deep while hiding his intent, and the monster is watching -- and laughing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I think "Warning: Luca Blight" is sufficient for this. (Warning for Luca in this case entails violence-bordering-on-graphic, war crimes, and shit-gets-real thematic content.) First installment in a series.
> 
> This fic is unofficially subtitled _Jowy Atreides's Terrible Life Choices_ , by the way. The entire thing, particularly every instance of the word "Silverberg" in it, is [Mithrigil](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil/)'s fault, and she knows why.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jowy makes his bid for power, and ends up with far more than he bargained for.

Anabelle's blood won't come off his knife.

Jowy wipes it down with a cloth, oils it, even scours it with a handful of sand, but a red sheen still stains the blade, and he can't scrape off the flecks of blood near the hilt. He sheathes the knife, finally, and sets it aside, close enough to his bedroll that he could reach it if he has to. He might have to, from the baleful looks some of the Highland soldiers shot him earlier. Whoever's in charge clearly hasn't put out the reason for his return. They'll probably be slow to trust him even after that, but he'll win them over, somehow. He has to, doesn't he?

He squeezes his eyes shut, but only feels more awake for it. Shifting position on his bedroll doesn't help, either. Resting on his side cramps his shoulder, resting on his stomach twists his neck, and resting on his back makes his heart race hard enough to beat in his throat. Occasionally laughs roar from the rest of the camp, or hammers clang, or fires crackle, and none of those exactly lull him to sleep either.

Is Riou sleeping? Jowy doubts it. He's always been a light sleeper—not as light as Nanami, who used to bolt awake if a cricket scampered across the floor, but light enough. And after what happened in Muse, well.

Someone outside his tent starts to sing. Jowy pushes his pillow around his ears, breathes. Even his breath is loud, rattling in his chest. He glances at the knife again, and for a moment it almost sounds like the blade's humming along to the tune, low and shivering. _Stop that_ , he tells himself. He's too old for that sort of thing. He sits up, draws the knife from its sheath, stares at it in the firelight soaking through the tent's walls. It's only a knife. It's not the cleanest knife, but it's only a knife.

It shouldn't matter whether or not it's clean. He'll get a new one if it rusts or tarnishes. Unless Luca expects to see him wearing it, but it wasn't as though the blade was a gift, was it? Just a loan. His fingers lock around the hilt, throttle it until the blade quivers. Oh, he'll return it, all right. He'll return it with _interest_.

But not yet.

There's a guard posted outside Jowy's tent—his shadow stretches across the canvas—but otherwise it's Jowy's alone, and the guard's more of a formality than anything else. The guard knows it, too; his shadow shows him seated on the ground, his polearm planted next to him. Jowy might be able to catch him by surprise, overpower him without even calling on his Rune, reach the trees before the guard could cry out to the rest of the camp. But he won't, and they all know it, and so they've left him alone because even if he isn't a Jowston spy he's not a Highland soldier again either.

Damn it, what more does he have to _do_?

He snorts. Stupid question.

***

Rowd escorts Jowy to Luca Blight's tent the next morning, and Jowy forces himself not to spit in the man's face.

"Don't get cocky, you little punk," Rowd hisses in Jowy's ear, his fingers tightening on the back of Jowy's neck. His breath is as foul as the rest of him, still reeking from last night's celebrations. "And keep your smart mouth shut around His Highness, do you hear? You're lucky he hasn't cut your traitorous throat yet."

_You're still sore that a pair of boys got the better of you, aren't you? His Highness must be pleased to have such a brilliant military mind under his command_ , Jowy doesn't retort. That's exactly the sort of thing Rowd wants to hear from him, and Jowy doesn't have to be stupid just because Rowd is.

That stupid man slaughtered a hundred of his comrades. A hundred children. Jowy's fists tighten at his sides, shaking; slowly, he flattens them out again. Rowd, fortunately, doesn't seem to be watching his hands, but other people will be. "Once a traitor, always a traitor," he goes on, and Jowy stares straight ahead at the line of trees, keeps his spine as straight as their trunks. "And after all this country did for you."

It honestly hasn't occurred to this man that his own actions forced Jowy to flee to the City-State, has it? Of course not. By now, Rowd's probably convinced himself that Jowy and Riou were Jowston spies from the beginning, and that he's to be commended for ferreting them out. Bile rises in the back of his throat—but what Rowd believes must be what nearly everyone else does, too, and it's useful to remind himself of that. He swallows, turns his focus ahead again and tunes Rowd out as best he can.

The walk to Luca Blight's tent isn't long. He doesn't know whether to be thankful for that or not. "Here to see His Highness," Rowd says to the guard, who snaps his head up and shows them in.  
Rowd bows immediately, and Jowy doesn't have to be told to do the same. It's not enough for Rowd, though, and he braces his palm between Jowy's shoulderblades, shoves him down further. 

Somewhere above him Luca laughs, full and free, and Jowy decides not to raise his head just yet.  
"Well, boy?" he says. "No curses for me this time? No snarls? No protests?"

_Relax your hands_ , Jowy reminds himself when his fingers start to twitch. "No, your Highness."

Luca chuckles, and the sound scrapes up Jowy's spine. "Heh. So you think you've learned your place?"

_You think_. The words set Jowy's hackles on end, and he breathes before he bristles where Luca can see. Unless he's seen already—no, Jowy doesn't have time to second-guess every answer he gives. That'll raise Luca's suspicion faster than anything else, he doesn't doubt. "Not yet, your Highness," he says, but keeps his head down.

The air thickens, and Rowd's knuckles dig into Jowy's back. "Not yet?" Luca says—says, not shouts. The knot at the base of Jowy's spine uncurls itself a hair.

"I haven't received my next assignment," he says, and braces himself for what's to come.

Fortunately it's a laugh and not a blow or worse, though Jowy still struggles not to flinch. Luca's still laughing; Jowy sneaks a glance up and watches him clutch the back of his chair, slam it down the way some men slam down pints of beer after a good joke. "You've got balls," he says. "More than most of this gutless rabble. Come here."

Jowy does before Rowd pushes him forward. He stands as straight as he dares, wills his knees not to tremble. 

"Show me your hand," Luca says. Jowy doesn't need to ask which one. He raises his right hand as though he's swearing an oath, and Luca grabs him by the wrist and yanks him closer. Jowy stumbles, bites his cheek before he curses. Luca snorts, rotates Jowy's hand palm-up and palm-down again until he finds what he's looking for or he gets bored, Jowy can't tell which.   
"Heh," he says at last. Jowy tries not to look at his teeth. "I haven't seen this since I was a kid. How did a boy like you get his hands on it?"

Jowy's throat closes; his breath shudders to a halt. The strange blue light in that cave, and the shadows that had no right to be on Pilika's face but lined it anyway, and Riou smiling at him from a field of blinding white—

Luca continues on, and if he's noticed Jowy's silence he doesn't comment on it. Maybe he likes to hear himself talk. Jowy's dealt with enough of those sorts of men at his father's house, but polite smiles and attentive noises won't appease Luca. "Do you think you can kill me with this?" he asks, and tightens his grip on Jowy's wrist until the grooves in his gauntlet snag on Jowy's skin.  
Jowy sucks in a breath through his teeth and says nothing.

Apparently the question wasn't rhetorical, because Luca wrenches Jowy's hand up, high enough that his shoulder cracks in protest. "You couldn't even kill a pack of common soldiers with this. How the hell could you kill me?"

The back of Jowy's neck heats and some of that heat creeps into his cheeks, but he can't look down. He can't. There's no surer admission of guilt. "I couldn't," he says, and the words sting his tongue.

"Damned right." Luca huffs out something that's almost a laugh, and Jowy hears his fingerbone snap a second before he feels it.

Pain explodes behind his eyes, sears his arm to the bone, jangling and harsh and hard enough to drive him to his knees except Luca's holding him up like a rag and if he kneels he'll rip his arm out of its socket, too. _Gods_. His throat burns from the scream trapped inside it, and when Luca bends that finger back further he shouts loud enough to shake from it.

"You couldn't, and you can't, and you won't," Luca goes on, his smile glimmering in the thick red haze creeping over Jowy's sight. "So don't try."

Whatever answer Jowy has to that scrapes and sticks somewhere in his throat—and then Luca snaps another finger and the tent wavers and Jowy doesn't realize he's started screaming again until he runs out of breath.

Luca's laughing. Of course he's laughing. Hate curls through Jowy's veins, red and insistent as the pain. He gives Jowy's arm a shake and Jowy's head lolls to the side and he wonders, dizzied, how any man—even this man—can call on so much strength. It shouldn't be human. The world blackens around the edges of his vision.  
"Go ahead, call on your Rune!" Luca's shoulders shake too, but not from pain. "Ask it to kill me where I stand!"

"Can't—" Jowy chokes.

_Crack_. Oh gods. He'd faint now if every nerve in his body weren't burning, jangling. Well, he can't hold a knife now. Or a sword. Or a sword Rune. That isn't funny and he's not going to laugh, the Mad Prince can't have already destroyed his wits that much.

"What is it, boy? What can't you do?"

He searches for the pulse of his Rune beneath the throbbing in his hand, but there's nothing, not even the tiniest hum of power.

"Can't—" He forces the words past his teeth. "I can't kill you—"

"And now you won't forget that," Luca says, and wrenches back the last unbroken finger on Jowy's hand.

_I can't throw up in front of the Prince of Highland_ , Jowy thinks, and prays his stomach listens after the wave of nausea hits. He squeezes his eyes shut; they're damp at the corners, and how could they not be? 

It takes Jowy a moment to realize Luca's let go of his hand. Once he does, his arm sags at his side, useless. "Get one of the healers to fix that," Luca says, and strides to the tent flap. "Report to me when you're done. We're setting up headquarters in Muse, and you're riding with my company." He looks over his shoulder, his smile steadier than anything else in Jowy's line of sight. "Tell me how you killed that cunt on the way there. I hope she squealed when you stuck her."

He leaves, and Jowy collapses to his knees, knows better than to try and break his fall. He expects Rowd to haul him to his feet again, but Rowd is as silent as he's been since the beginning, and doesn't pull Jowy upright until Jowy asks.

***

The healer calls on his Water Rune, the pain ebbs away, and Jowy thinks he's going to faint from its absence. To be safe, the healer puts Jowy's hand in a splint while his bones reset themselves, but at least it'll take hours instead of weeks for them to do that. He doesn't dare flex his fingers yet, though, no matter how much the magic itches under his skin. 

The tent flap flies open as the healer finishes bandaging the splints into place, and a man with wild red hair saunters in, flashes Jowy a grin. "Well look who's here," he says. "The kid who killed Mayor Anabelle."

"And my _patient_ ," the healer says, with the kind of irritable edge in his voice that all healers seem to develop sooner or later. "So if you'll excuse me, General Seed—"

General Seed waves his hand in the air. "Done. You're excused. I just want a few words with him, all right?"

The healer purses his mouth. "As you wish," he says, and sweeps out after admonishing Jowy to use his hand as little as possible.

"Healers." Seed shakes his head. "They're useful, don't get me wrong, but they're giant pains in the ass."

Jowy inclines his head, but remains silent.

"Looks like His Highness took a shine to you."

This time, Jowy can't keep himself from snorting.

"I'm serious," Seed says, though his grin is anything but. "If he didn't like you, he'd just have killed you straight off. Wouldn't bother with that first." He indicates Jowy's hand, and Jowy fights to keep it from twitching in response. "Maybe _likes_ is going a little too far, I don't think he actually likes anybody—except Her Highness sometimes, but that's a _sometimes_ , I'm pretty sure."

Jowy remembers the kind of face his father used to adopt at court and before petitioners: neither smiling nor frowning, his gaze level and straight, no new wrinkles creasing his face. He slips that expression on now; the more practice he can get in before he has to face Luca Blight again, the better. "I hope I don't give His Highness cause to dislike me further, then."

"Heh. Well, you never know." Seed thumps him on the back, and if it was meant to be reassuring, Jowy will eat his boots. "Sometimes you don't even need to give His Highness cause at all," he adds, dropping his voice, and pushes his hair from his neck. "See this scar?"  
"Yes."

"It's from when he nearly scalped me," Seed says. "Grabbed me by the hair and hacked it off at the root. I thought he was going to shave my head with his sword—and shave clean through my skull while he was at it. He said my hair already looked like blood, so who could tell the difference?"

Jowy's hand stiffens, runs colder than the Water Rune alone could have made it. The chill creeps up the rest of his arm, sinks deeper under his skin, and he digs his heels into the ground to keep from flinching. Seed expects him to flinch, so he can't. "Why?" he asks, and hates how audible the dryness in his throat is.

Seed shrugs and plants himself on the edge of one of the beds, stretches his limbs until they crack. "Who knows? I think something must've pissed him off before I got there, and then I was there, and well. He had to take it out on someone."

_He didn't_ have _to do anything_ , Jowy nearly retorts, but pain lances through his hand again, stabs at all the places that haven't mended yet, and he's too busy trying not to yelp to say anything. He looks down at his hand. It's curled into a fist, and he closes his eyes, commands each finger to uncurl. The Rune throbs under his skin, tries to shove its energy out of his fingertips, but he resists that too. 

"Careful with your hand there," Seed says. He must have noticed. "You don't want it to heal out of alignment. Believe me, I know."

He spares a glance at Seed's hands. Seed's gloves might be concealing scars or discolorations, but nothing about the shape of his hands strikes Jowy as odd. "You do?"

"Yeah. Not my hands, but pretty close." Seed beckons Jowy closer, and Jowy is tempted to ask him which one of them is the patient, but it's not as though his hand keeps him from walking. "Check this out," he says, and lines his wrists up next to each other. One of them looks normal, but the other—Jowy winces. The bone juts out to the side like someone shoved it out of place and never bothered to put it back.

"His Highness wanted to test out his new plate." Seed's smile stretches into a grimace. "Told me to put a dent in it or break myself against it trying, and you can guess how that turned out. He wouldn't let me stop until I couldn't hold the sword anymore, and even after all that I barely scratched the enamel."

Jowy remembers trying to lock blades with Luca, how he thought every bone in his body would snap from the force bearing down on him and Riou. How could an ordinary sword hope to cut that? Even the fire that destroyed the rest of the fort rolled off Luca's back, and his eyes burned brighter than the flames.

"And you know, I don't think he ended up liking that armor much, anyway," Seed continues. He looks at Jowy with what could be mistaken for nonchalance, but his eyes are too sharp for it to really be that.

"I thought you said he didn't like anything," Jowy says. It feels like the safest response.

"No, I said he didn't like any _one_. There's plenty of things he likes, and things he likes doing." Seed's teeth aren't as sharp as Luca's but they're whiter, stark against the red of his hair and uniform. "You know, you're just about the right age—nah, relax, I'm kidding," he says when Jowy jerks back and nearly falls off the edge of the bed. "He doesn't do that. He doesn't do that with anyone at all, as far as we know. Practically lives like a monk—well, sort of." His laugh's fuller this time, but it's nothing compared to Luca's. "It might be the only thing you're safe from with him, but hey, it's something."

"It's something, all right," a dry voice says from somewhere behind Jowy, and a man strides into view, tall and solid and pale. He led a unit of mounted archers during the assault on the mercenary fort, Jowy remembers, and Solon Jhee called him Culgan. General Culgan looks down at both of them, his eyebrows raised. "Did he tell you about the scar?"

"Yes," Jowy says, and Seed scoffs.

"He got it from a griffin."

Seed spreads his hands wide. "How the fuck would I get a scar from a griffin?"

"You were sixteen, and you tried to steal its egg." Is Culgan smirking? It's hard to tell, but Jowy suspects he is. "It's not that unexpected, when you think about it."

Seed rolls his eyes.

"Don't mind him, Jowy. He tells that story to all the soldiers entering His Highness's personal service."

"I hadn't even gotten to the one about the tent peg yet," Seed says, and sighs dramatically. "You ruin all my fun."

It's an invitation to ask, but Jowy knows better than to accept it. "Then none of it was true?"

"Some of it was. He's not going to rape you, if that's what you're worried about."

Jowy nods once, short and sharp. "How did you really dislocate your wrist?"

"Bashing my sword against His Highness's armor, like I said." 

Culgan looks away, stays silent.

"Well, all right, fine, technically I fell on it when I tried to charge him down and he swatted me out of the way. Damn stupid way to break a fall. I probably should've landed on my ass instead." This time, Seed's smile doesn't stretch far enough. "But hell, I can still hold a sword, and you'll be able to too, and that's what matters, right?"

"I don't use a sword," Jowy says, and out of the corner of his eye, watches the glances Seed and Culgan exchange. 

"You don't," Culgan asks, "or you can't?"

"Don't." It sounds stupid the moment he says it; what's the difference between a sword and a staff and a knife, at heart? They're different weapons, but they're weapons all the same, and if a sword is what he needs he'd be a fool to turn it down.

"Once your hand heals, we'll see what you can do." Another signal passes between Seed and Culgan, and Seed wrings a crack out of his neck, pushes himself off the bed. 

"Good luck, kid," Seed says, and claps his hand on Jowy's shoulder, leans in and lowers his voice. "And be careful. Even the shit I made up isn't as bad as half the stuff you're gonna hear. And most of that's true."

***

General Kiba rides up to the gates of Muse to greet Luca and his escort, most of whom he seems to know. He frowns when he sees Jowy, though, and asks, "Who's this, your Highness?"

"My new adjutant," Luca says, which at least gives Jowy a title. He decides not to ask anyone how many adjutants Luca's gone through. "Where are they keeping the pigs?"

"Your Highness?" 

"Don't play stupid, you can smell them as well as I can." Luca winds his horse's reins tighter around his hands, and ignores his whinny of protest. "Stinking swine, every last one of them. Whatever idiot I left in charge must be letting them walk around free."

"Their soldiers are confined, your Highness, and the city is secured and occupied. All citizens of Muse are under curfew, and—"

"It's a waste of our men," Luca mutters, his lip curling. "Occupations always are."  
General Kiba reddens behind his mustache. "Your Highness, surely you're not suggesting we withdraw?"

"No," Luca says, and looks up at the city gates. His eyes gleam. Jowy doesn't want to know why, but the spark in them brightens and dances and Jowy stares, wonders what it signifies. "Not yet."

Jowy's right hand throbs.

"Open the gates!" Luca hollers, and the guards in front almost trip over themselves in their scramble to obey. He waves the rest of his party ahead, but when Jowy kicks his horse forward, Luca grabs the reins away from him.

"I have a job for you," Luca says, and Jowy's skin prickles. 

"What is it, your Highness?" he asks, and fights to keep his breathing even, his hands steady. For gods' sakes, Luca hasn't even told him what he wants him to do yet. There has to be some way to keep his guard up without twitching like a rabbit every time Luca addresses him. And Luca's going to be addressing him often, if his new title's any indication.

"You're counting pigs," he says. "We sectioned Muse up. Go to the captains in charge of each section and get their daily headcounts for their areas. Make sure the numbers haven't fallen or risen—I don't want anyone being smuggled in or out of this city. Then find out how many Muse soldiers we've rounded up, and if _that_ number's changed, my captains better have a damned good reason why."

It could be worse. Jowy breathes more freely. "Yes, your Highness."

"One more thing," Luca says before Jowy rides ahead, and Jowy curses himself for jinxing that.

***

The Highland soldiers rap smartly on each door on the block, first with their fists, then with the butts of their spears if there's no answer, and finally with their hatchets if nobody comes to the door after that. They've only used their hatchets once. Most people open their doors before the soldiers finish knocking and file quietly into the street. Older children clutch the younger ones by the hand and lead them along, and younger men and women offer their arms and shoulders for the elderly to lean on. 

There's no reason Jowy has to be here. He's only collecting the final count. That's all. That's all he has to do. He turns around to face the other end of the street; there's a small garden at the end of it that the soldiers haven't trampled, and a tree blossoms in the middle. It's pretty, for a tree. He can't say he usually gives much thought to trees, but maybe he should start to.

One last door slams, and the shuffling sounds behind him taper off.

The tree doesn't look like any of the ones that grow in Kyaro. Most of the other plants around here haven't looked much different than the ones in Kyaro, though. Maybe this tree was a gift from another city, an offering of friendship. Its budding leaves—

"Twenty on this block, sir."

"Thirty-two on this block, sir."

Its leaves aren't that interesting, truth be told. He digs his thumbnail into his palm. A bird lands on one of the branches near the top and starts to chirp, and Jowy strains to listen to it, block all the other sounds out. Its call is high and trilling, almost like a reed pipe, sliding from high to low to high again. He wonders if it's showing off, or if it's trying to attract a mate, or both.

"Twenty-six on this block, sir."

"That's seven missing since last count. You say you checked every house?"

"Yes, sir."

"Any houses where everyone was missing?"

"No, sir."

The bird's warbles trail off. _No_ , Jowy thinks, _keep chirping._ But the bird tucks its head under its wing and grooms itself, oblivious to everything else. Jowy sighs, presses his thumbnail in even deeper. Isn't the bird traveling with a flock? Where's the rest of it?

"Search all the houses on that stretch," the man who must be the captain says. "Don't let anyone go back inside until you've finished."

"Understood, sir," the soldier says, and Jowy stares at the sky, tries to pick out patterns in the clouds, but they're not much more than threads of white today.

"Sir?" the captain says, his voice closer, and it takes Jowy a moment to realize the captain's referring to him. He turns around, keeps his focus squarely on the captain's face and his thick moustache and ruddy cheeks.

"Yes?" Jowy says.

"My apologies, sir, but we won't have the final count ready for you for another hour, at least." He cringes before he's finished speaking, and turns his face to the side as though he's bracing himself for a slap.

"It's fine," Jowy says, "I'll come back later," and turns around before the captain finishes saluting.

He walks towards the tree. A voice in the back of his head screams _Coward_. He doesn't answer it.

***

Straw pallets are scattered across the floors of the clinic to create more beds. There still aren't enough: some of the pallets hold two people, curled in tightly on themselves to leave space for a possible third. Jowy steps around the pallets as best he can, but that means he has to watch where he puts his feet, and when he does that he can't avoid looking at the blood staining the straw, the bile caked on the floor.

"What are you doing here?"

A man straightens, rises from the side of a soldier with more bandages showing than skin. He peers at Jowy over the rim of his spectacles, and his lips thin. 

"You'll address His Highness's adjutant with respect," one of the Highland soldiers growls, but Jowy holds up his hand before the soldier finishes drawing his sword. There's enough blood here. More would almost be superfluous, wouldn't it?

"Are you the healer in charge of this clinic?" he asks.

The man jerks his chin up, says nothing. It seems that's as much answer as he'll give, but it's answer enough. The bandaged soldier groans, louder than the wounded around him, and the healer kneels to wring out a cloth and press it to his forehead, but his eyes stay sharp on Jowy's.

"I have orders from His Highness," Jowy says. He'd breathe in to settle the pounding in his ears, the churning in his stomach, but who knows what this air's infected with? Some of the Highland soldiers escorting him clap cloths over their mouths to stifle their coughs, but Jowy didn't bring a cloth with him. All he has are his orders, stamped and sealed, and when he squares his shoulders the paper crinkles inside his jacket.

The healer sucks his breath through his teeth, and Jowy thinks he'd spit on the floor if he weren't trying to keep it from getting any dirtier. "What orders?"

"What orders, _sir_ ," the Highland soldier who spoke before corrects, and again Jowy holds up his hand. At least they'll obey that much from him. His Rune throbs under his glove, pulses in time with the shallow breaths and ragged moans around him. He closes his eyes—no. No, he can't do that.

He snatches the paper from his jacket, tightens his jaw. "These orders."

The healer steps forward to receive them, thank the gods; he probably doesn't want Jowy and the soldiers advancing any further into this clinic. How much more of the clinic _is_ there? He hasn't seen any proper beds yet, and they must have some in the back—

Jowy's pulse drums in his temples, hard enough that red seeps into his vision. He's not here to find that out. He's here to deliver the orders. That's all. That's all.

"Are you going to give them to me or not?" the healer snaps, and Jowy uncurls his fingers from the paper, one by one. His fingers ache, but it's a different feel than the kind his Rune gives him, cramped and stiff.

Before the healer breaks the seal, Jowy turns around and motions for the soldiers to follow him. There's a small window set in the door; he looks through that at the sky beyond until they're out in the open air again.

"Wait," the healer calls, his voice carried on the breeze the closing door shoves out, but the door clatters shut before Jowy has to hear the rest. He still can't close his eyes, but when he opens his mouth to tell the soldiers to return to their previous stations, his voice stutters and stalls in his throat. He waves them ahead the way he's seen Luca do more than once by now, and apparently they remember what it means, too.

Now Jowy closes his eyes, and the orders inscribe themselves on the backs of his eyelids, each letter burning red.

_Draw up two lists: the patients well enough to recover on their own, and the patients who need further care. Deliver those lists to the captain of this section before dawn tomorrow. If you fail to do so, everyone in your care and everyone employed by your clinic will be put to the sword._

_I won't waste magic and medicine on this trash_ , Luca said. _If they're too weak to live, then why should they? Better to kill them fast and save ourselves the trouble._

Jowy ducks into the first alleyway he sees so he won't double over in the middle of the street.

***

"Lower," Culgan says, and Jowy strains to comply, bring the hilt of his sword to his temple instead of holding it overhead. It's heavier than he remembered, like a staff with a lead core but not as evenly weighted. 

"The point's too high."

Jowy grits his teeth, lifts his back shoulder, and the line of his blade dips and straightens. It straightens too much, and at least he twists the short edge back towards himself when Culgan calls him on it.

"Thumb under the blade."

Damn. He swears he used to know all this. Versions of it, at least. The stances Culgan's having him run through aren't quite the same as the ones Genkaku taught, or even the same as the ones he drilled in the Unicorn Brigade. Culgan circles him, and Jowy keeps his knees bent and trunk straight no matter how hard he needs to breathe. 

"Not bad," Culgan says at last. "Your hand's too close to the guard, but not bad."

It's always something, isn't it?

Culgan taps his shoulder, motions for him to lower his blade, and Jowy tries not to sigh with relief. "Your hands are spaced like this on a staff." He demonstrates, holds his hands about an arm's length apart. "On a sword, it's like this." He moves his hands closer, barely as wide as his face. "You have less of a base of support, and you're holding the end instead of the center. It's harder to control the whole blade."

"That's what I was taught," Jowy says, but this is a more forceful reminder than most he's had. 

Culgan nods once and gestures up, and Jowy shifts into plow stance, his hilt by his hipbone and his blade angled towards an imaginary opponent's throat. It's the most familiar to him after wielding a staff for so long. He tests out a few quick slices and upward thrusts: a swipe at where his opponent's knees would be, a fast jab at the throat.

"You're ready, then?" Culgan asks, and even if the answer is _no_ it's better to match himself against someone real.

He nods. Culgan draws his sword wordlessly—and whips towards Jowy with a two-handed cut, one he barely dodges in time. "It's not live steel," Culgan says, but that's all the pause Jowy gets before Culgan bears down on him again. He brings his sword up to parry but Culgan knocks his blade aside and raps Jowy on the shoulder. Blunted edge or not, that _smarts_. Jowy arcs his blade down to cut behind Culgan's knees, but as he lifts his arm Culgan chops him under it and the shock rings down, forces Jowy's fingers open. His grip on the hilt slips; he fumbles and steadies himself in time to flip his blade up and turn Culgan's thrust. There's an opening now and Jowy takes it, follows through and extends that strike to smack Culgan's ribs. The impact shudders down his arm again—there was never this much recoil with his staff, even when he struck bone. 

No time to think about that. Culgan lunges and slashes down Jowy's chest, etching a line of fire down his ribs and stomach, and if that blade were sharp Jowy's guts would have spilled across the ground. As it is he has to clutch his stomach, will that throbbing burn to fade.

"Keep both hands on your sword," Culgan chides him, and proves his point when he reverses his grip and brings his hilt down on Jowy's wrist. The bones in his hand flare up with fresh pain and echoes of an older one, his fingers snapping in Luca Blight's grasp, and Jowy hisses and cradles his palm to his chest, drops the sword. It thumps to the dirt and the point of Culgan's blade hovers at Jowy's throat, steady and shining.

So soon. Damn. His jaw tightens.

"That was better than I expected." Culgan sheathes his sword, motions to Jowy to pick his own up. That'll have to wait a few moments, until pain isn't jangling so harshly through his wrist. 

"You know how to do this," Culgan says. "You need to break your staff habits, that's all."

"Like fighting defensively."

That voice is unmistakably Luca's. Jowy whips around. Luca's sliding his gauntlets into place; they look lighter than the ones he usually wears. He's armored more lightly, too, in leather instead of plate, but it makes a certain amount of sense. Jowy can't imagine sparring in full plate, though if anyone could do it, Luca could.

"A sword's no good for blocking," Luca continues, striding closer. "All you'll do is ruin the blade." He draws his own, and from the way it rings from its sheath Jowy knows it's live steel. "Swords strike. Swords _kill_. You learn forms because you can kill your enemies faster from them."

In a flash, Luca raises his sword over his head and sweeps it down towards Jowy's neck and Jowy hits the ground, ignores the latest ache in his hand and snatches his own sword up and brings it up to guard—

"Wrong," Luca barks, and the edge of his sword rests against Jowy's throat, right where his sweat is beading the most. His pulse pounds against the blade's edge, hard and uneven. Is this still a lesson? He'd ask Culgan, but Culgan's clearing his throat, glancing aside. Luca smirks. Better that than laughing. Maybe.

"Don't try to stop my sword," Luca says, and bares his neck, his teeth. "Go for my throat."

Jowy swallows, his skin straining against the blade. "What if you hit me first, your Highness?"

"Heh. Then who cares?" Luca withdraws his sword, finally, and Jowy tries not to make his desperate gulp for air too obvious. "You'd never have been able to beat me. But it's better to die fighting."

His cheekbone stings where Anabelle scored him across it with the shards of that bottle. She would have sliced his throat open with it if he hadn't rammed the knife into her side—

Jowy closes his eyes.

"Get over here, Culgan," Luca shouts over his shoulder. "I'm tired of cutting down worms. Give me a _real_ fight."

***

Luca slams both fists onto the table, and it groans so loudly that Jowy thinks it'll crack. "How many times?" Luca roars, sends his chair crashing to the floor as he stands. Jowy flinches at the sound but stays where he is, out of Luca's path and hopefully enough out of his sight. "How many times has he gone up against a pack of Toranese dogs—"

"Your Highness," Kiba says, "I believe they enlisted aid from—"

_Bad move_ , Jowy thinks, just as Luca shouts, "Shut up!" He moves faster than he has any right to in armor that heavy, and seizes Kiba's cloak before Kiba gets out of the way. "Are you defending that sack of shit to me?"

Kiba's forehead shines, the skin under his beard reddening. "Your Highness, this is unseemly."

Luca snarls and shoves Kiba towards the toppled chair, though apparently not hard enough to knock Kiba over the way he knocked over it. That's strange. Jowy would expect Luca to lay Seed or Culgan or Rowd out flat for addressing him like that, but Kiba merits different treatment, at least slightly. Why? He should look into that—but not now, because Luca looks ready to rip the tent from its moorings and set the canvas on fire.

" _How many times_ did Solon Jhee fight that fat idiot and his squealing little herd of swine and disgrace himself?"

"Two, your Highness," Kiba says, and closes his eyes. 

"And it would have been three if that one hadn't cut that cunt's throat and saved us the trouble." Luca jerks his thumb at Jowy, and Jowy draws himself as upright as possible, breathes in deep and slow and even. His fists are curled again. Damn it. Why hasn't he trained himself out of that yet?

The tent flap rustles before Luca has a chance to look Jowy over any further, but Jowy doesn't dare sigh in relief. "Your Highness," a messenger says, not rising from his deep bow, "there's another report from the front." He holds it out to Luca, the paper quivering, and cringes when Luca snatches it from his hand.

Luca's barely begun to scan the report before he crushes it in his fist, his teeth bared and almost frothing, and try as he might Jowy can't look away. "You're telling me that Solon Jhee lost to some _kid_? The Second Highland Army ran away from some damned kid with a flag?"

The blood drains from Jowy's fingers, and his pulse roars too loudly in his ears to make out Luca's next string of curses. It can't be. No. He told Riou to leave, to take Nanami and Pilika somewhere safe, and he wouldn't drag them into danger. He wouldn't. He can't. 

"I should cut you down right here for handing me this piece of crap." Luca unsheathes his sword, the messenger grips his shaking knees, and Jowy steels his jaw, forces himself not to look away. " _Go_. Bring me your commanding officer, and then I'll decide what to do with your worthless hide."

The messenger scurries out of the tent and almost tangles himself in the flap on the way out. Luca watches him leave, snorts, starts to pace around the perimeter. "A kid," he says, his sword still out. "Some snot-nosed little shit. If Solon Jhee lost to _that_ , he's not fit to lead a pig to a pisshole."

There were other people Riou and Jowy's age at the mercenary fort. There might even have been a few younger. And Viktor let Riou lead a company, but surely he wouldn't give him charge of an army, would he? Something cold and ugly crawls up Jowy's spine. 

Rowd bursts in, wild-haired and out of breath, and it's easier to resist the urge to punch him when Luca might well do the job for Jowy. "Your Highness," Rowd says, "another bird just arrived from General Seed. He confirms—" Rowd looks at the paper crumpled in the dirt, swallows. "Uh, the previous report. Highness."

Luca growls like a mad dog, and Jowy's shoulders tense before he can stop himself. "I'm going to grab that kid's neck," he says, and grips Rowd's to demonstrate. Rowd chokes, and Luca's fingers tighten. "And I'm going to wring until it snaps. Like this."

Kiba cuts in, says something about hearing more of Rowd's report before throttling him half to death, but Jowy's only half-listening. The Rune pulses through his arm, under his skin, in his ears, drowns out the racing of his heart.

"Get out," Luca tells Kiba, and if Kiba's bow is almost short and sharp enough to be rude, Luca doesn't say anything about it. His fingers uncurl from Rowd's throat, and Rowd barely has time to gasp before Luca says, "Who _is_ this kid, and why does he have an army?"

Rowd cringes as though he's already expecting Luca to strike him. It's pathetic, and Luca must think so too, from the way he huffs out something between a dry laugh and a snort. But then Rowd jerks his chin back and straightens, new color in his cheeks, and tries to burn a hole through Jowy with his glare. So much for staying unnoticed, Jowy thinks, and stares coolly back at him. And if Jowy's knees lock, if his tongue dries out, if sweat gathers inside his boots—well, neither of the other two men has to see it.

"Ask him, your Highness," Rowd says, and jabs his finger in Jowy's face. Jowy steels himself not to blink. "Northwind's commander's that boy who snuck into our camp with him. Riou's his name, and he and that one over there have been thick as thieves since I met ‘em."

It really wasn't supposed to happen like this. No. He can't panic. He needs to steady himself. If he freezes, or trembles, or agitates the Rune—it isn't worth dwelling on the consequences, that'll only make things worse. Jowy lowers his shoulders, lifts his head, and it takes everything in him not to flinch when Luca says, "Take your sniveling little messenger and leave my tent." He might be speaking to Rowd, but his glare settles on Jowy, and Jowy's gaze drifts to the gleaming edge of Luca's blade.

Rowd shoots Jowy one more scowl before hurrying out, and Luca advances, and if Jowy runs, he's dead.

"So you know that kid, is that right? How many secrets have you been keeping from me?" Luca rams the hilt of his sword under Jowy's chin, forces it up. "Tell me why I shouldn't have my men pry them out of you."

It's hard to form words like this, but he has to. "I didn't think that was a secret."

"Ha! Then why didn't I know about it?"

"You did know, your Highness," Jowy says, forces down a wave of irritation. "You saw us both at the fort, and you saw us both at the camp. He got away the second time. I didn't. And he wasn't commanding anything then."

"He is now. Did you plan that out with him?" Luca grins. It looks more like a grimace. "You kill the sow of Muse, that friend of yours takes her army, then you kill me and take mine. Heh. It's all perfectly stupid. Just like a pair of kids."

"I already told you I can't kill you."

Luca snorts, clocks Jowy across the temple with the hilt of his sword. Jowy's vision only slips out of focus for a moment, so Luca can't have meant it to do real harm. Luca's keeping him alive. For now. "Of course you can't. And watch how you address me."

"I didn't plan anything with him, either, your Highness," Jowy says, and wills away the memories of that night—and of a night not long before that one, when moonlight shone into the cell they shared with Nanami and Pilika, and Riou—

Gods, now isn't the time.

"I thought he'd left the City-States," he continues.

"He's their spy. Why would he?"

_He wasn't a spy_ , Jowy wants to scream, but that argument isn't going to help him and it's pointless now, considering. He breathes, steadies his hands. "It doesn't matter why he would, your Highness, since he hasn't."

Luca laughs at that, and moves his sword a hair further away from Jowy's temple. "And what are you planning now? Will you betray your family and your country again, and run off and join him?"

"No, your Highness," Jowy says, and it's true. His throat stings. He swallows, pushes that down too. "He saw me kill Mayor Anabelle. He wouldn't take me back after that."

"Not if he has more brains than the gods gave a goose," Luca agrees. "Ha. You're not the easiest boy to trust, are you?"

"I suppose not." Jowy runs his knuckles over the bruise blossoming under his chin. It's not as tender as it could be. "Put me under watch if you like, your Highness, but I'm not working for Jowston—" Damn it, he can't choke now. "And I've cut any ties I had with their command."

Have you really," Luca says, and turns Jowy's face from side to side as though he's inspecting it. Jowy wants to hack that hand off at the wrist, and he needs to stop thinking about that before his Rune encourages him to do it.

"If you met that brat on the battlefield, what would you do?" Luca asks. "I bet you wouldn't have the balls to run him through."

He can't afford to ask himself that question, no matter how clear the image is in his mind: Riou's hand over the wound, blood seeping through his fingers, his eyes— _no_. But his Rune hums at those images, warms to them in a different way than it warms to threats. This is slower, tingling, _craving_. He might be able to use that. Jowy holds out his right hand and says, "You know what this is, your Highness."

"Yes. What about it?"

"The enemy commander has its opposite." _Enemy_. It stings his tongue. "If they meet in battle, it's in their natures to try to destroy each other."

For a moment, Luca is silent, and Jowy braces himself. Then Luca throws back his head and howls with laughter, and even if Jowy doesn't understand what's so funny it's better than being beheaded, so he keeps his mouth shut.

"Ha _ha_! It's Han and Genkaku all over again! This is priceless." His laughter trails off, and his smile curls up at the corners. "That old man was too soft on Han. He's too soft on everyone. Pah. If you sneak off to meet with that kid, or if you spare his life, I'll kill you. Understand?"

It wasn't supposed to come to this. "Yes, your Highness."

"Good. You're dismissed. And get Windamier in here. He and that son of his haven't shamed themselves in battle yet. They might still be of some use." 

It's a strategy meeting, that's clear enough, and it's one Jowy isn't invited to. He needs to change that.

But it might be better if he doesn't witness this one. He's not sure how much attention he could pay to it.

***

Telling himself not to think about Riou is like telling himself not to think of pink dragons. The images pop into his head whether he wants them there or not, and the harder he tries to push them away, the harder they are to get rid of. Forbidding himself from thinking about that night makes it even worse.

He flops onto his side, dangles his arm off the edge of his cot. He isn't the only one in the tent anymore; three other soldiers share it with him, though only one of them's asleep now. Does that mean they trust him more or trust him less? It probably means Luca's decided that this is a more effective way of keeping him under watch. It's fine. Jowy's not stupid enough to sneak off now, and he doesn't know who in the high command might not have sworn themselves fully to Luca's service. Kiba, obviously, but Jowy doubts Kiba's the type to go behind Luca's back. As for the rest of them—well, he needs to prove himself before he can win anyone's support, and he hasn't had much opportunity to do that yet. Can he create that opportunity? He sighs. What does Highland _need_?

At least thinking about this keeps his mind off Riou.

—damn it.

Jowy tries to run through what he's learned about the Highland Army's strengths and weaknesses, the goals it hasn't achieved and the fissures in its ranks, but all he sees is Riou riding at the head of a battalion, Riou breaking through his shyness enough to address his troops, Riou tilting his face up to the moonlight. Riou's too kind for war. Riou would never knife anyone in the back. Jowy doesn't want him to. He and Nanami and Pilika should be across the border in Toran now, or somewhere further than that, somewhere even Luca Blight wouldn't march. Why are they putting themselves in danger like this? Why do they _think_ Jowy left—

No, that isn't fair. They have no idea why Jowy left, Pilika least of all. He turns over, buries his face in his pillow. Maybe Riou agreed to take command so he could strike back at Jowy himself. Maybe Riou's Rune is whispering to him the same way Jowy's is, urging him to stand his ground and defend and protect. Maybe Jowy's being incredibly stupid and self-centered right now, but better now than when he's in front of the high command.

Maybe he shouldn't have waited so long to kiss Riou.

They were both staring up at the moon that night in Muse, the kind of moon that secret lovers met under in the stories Mother liked to read—though Jowy was trying not to think about those—and Jowy was already telling Riou at least half the things he'd promised himself never to share. How he spent hours trying to think of what to say to Riou and Nanami before they first met. How he had to fight down something sharp in his throat every time Nanami and Riou ran into Genkaku's arms and he laughed and carried them on his shoulders. And Riou's chin rested on his shoulder, and Riou's fingers twined with his, and his eyelashes almost glowed in the moonlight, and Jowy realized, somewhere, that getting entranced by Riou's eyelashes meant he should move away before he made a complete idiot out of himself. 

He didn't move, though, and Riou turned his chin up and smiled in that way of his, more with his eyes than with his mouth. And then that mouth was on Jowy's, and thinking back on it Jowy's still not sure which one of them moved first, and that almost hurts more than knowing would. Riou's lips were chapped at the corners but still soft underneath that, and when he sighed into Jowy's mouth the sound warmed him all the way down his spine. Jowy had pulled and tugged on Riou's hair before then, when they'd wrestled or fought, but he'd never run his fingers through it like that, never stroked it and felt Riou shiver.

Then Pilika woke up, and they sprang apart. Jowy put Pilika back to bed. He shouldn't have woken her up in the first place. Riou said nothing, so Jowy curled up on the cot and tried to sleep, too. And the next morning, and in the days after that, well, they didn't have much time to talk about it. Things were complicated enough.

It doesn't matter anymore. Jowy clutches his pillow closer; his knuckles brush against the hilt of the knife, where he's decided to store it for now. The way things are, he's more likely to kiss Holy Hikusaak than he is to kiss Riou again.

The other soldier in the tent gives a tremendous snort, and Jowy could almost kiss _him_ for the distraction. He tucks himself under his blanket and listens deep inside himself for the pulse of his Rune, lets that lull him to sleep.

***

The soldiers assigned to keep an eye on Jowy aren't being particularly subtle about it, which makes him suspect that he has at least one other tail who isn't making himself known. He'll need to figure out who that is soon, but he's not stupid enough to step out of line before he's earned anyone's trust. 

So Jowy drills with Culgan and Seed, takes his meals in the mess when he isn't waiting on the high command, volunteers to assist the surveyors and rune sages and blacksmiths when they're shorthanded and he has an hour to spare. He even digs the fire-pits one evening. If the soldiers are surprised to see him—a nobleman's son, a convicted spy, Luca's adjutant, or whatever the prevailing opinion of him is—doing honest work, they at least don't seem to resent him for it. Jowy tries not to make a show of it. He asks questions when he needs to know what a tool's called or which scrolls go where or how high to stoke a fire, but otherwise does what he's supposed to. 

Riou might not have spoken up much but he could get people to talk to him for minutes on end if he looked at them right. Jowy doesn't have that kind of ease with people, but he catches some of the men nodding when he finally scores a hit on Culgan or burns a target to the ground on his first try. Whispers still follow him when he walks through the camp, but their tone starts to shift. What they've seen him do might finally be starting to carry more weight than what they've heard about him.

There's only so much time he can spend among the enlisted men, though, with all that Luca has him doing. Luca may not be in the field now, but no matter how loudly he complains about that fact, he has more than enough to keep him busy. He reads every report the Highland Army's scouts and generals send, for one. He drives his dagger through some of them when he finishes reading them, but he reads them all. And he supervises his elite corps' drills every morning. How the White Wolves survive some of those drills Jowy doesn't know, but none of them complain about it afterwards. Jowy's responsible for briefing Luca on conditions within the army twice a day, once a few hours before noon and once at sunset. He learns what Luca does and doesn't want to hear soon enough, because Luca cuts him off with, "I don't care about that crap."

"Yes, your Highness," Jowy says, and makes a mental note to ask Seed why the armorers seem to be shortchanging the Third Company. "The prisoners of war from Muse—"

"Did they escape?"

"No, your Highness."

"Did they kill any of our men?"

"No, your Highness."

"Have they spread some disease to the rest of the camp?"

"No, your Highness."

"Then who cares?" Luca drains the last of his wineglass, slams it back down on the table. "Pour me more of this. No. Something stronger. This is almost water."

Jowy selects a better bottle and starts to pour when Luca grabs the hilt of the knife in Jowy's belt, and Jowy's glad he manages not to slop wine all over the table. "So you do still have it," he says.

Just in case, Jowy sets the bottle back down. "Do you want it back, your Highness?"

"Keep it. You've earned it, haven't you? Heh." Luca lets go of the hilt, pours the wine himself. "You never did tell me how it felt to kill that sow."

Jowy fights the urge to look down. "Different, your Highness," he manages. It's the only one he can admit to that's still true.

"Different from what?"

"Different from meeting her on the battlefield," he says, and searches for the right words to explain how.

He doesn't have to. Luca snorts and says, "Bullshit."

"What?"

"Bullshit," Luca repeats, matter-of-factly, and knocks back his drink. "Your enemies are your enemies whether you face them on the field or not. Stab them in the back, stab them in the front, what's the difference? They're dead either way."

Jowy shakes his head; Luca's watching him intently, his eyes sharp as a hawk's, but he hasn't drawn his sword or moved to stand yet. "But soldiers know they're putting their lives in danger, and they've agreed to do it. Civilians, children—"

"—should learn how to defend themselves if they're so afraid of dying. Why should the weak feel   
safer than the strong?"

"So children should die for the crime of being children," Jowy says before he can think better of it, and Luca narrows his eyes, tightens his grip on his glass.

"Children die all the time, boy," he says. "Children suffer and scream and bleed, and half the time it's at each other's hands. The world's not kind to children. Why the hell should I be?"

_Because they're innocent_ , Jowy wants to say, but his tongue locks in place. He remembers the children who used to chase him and Riou down, sticks in hand. One of them hurled a rock at Riou's temple once, and the gash on his head took so long to heal even with a Water Rune speeding it along. Riou's skull could have fractured if that rock had hit him differently, and the children would have been scolded for it, but they'd have kept chasing after Jowy all the same.

But what Luca's talking about isn't the same as that. It can't be.

Luca smirks, rising, and Jowy needs to stop being startled at how quickly he moves. "Do you know how your precious brats can save their little hides? Go on, guess."

Luca's going to tell him he's wrong, regardless of what he says, so he might as well keep his mouth shut. It's easier that way.

"No? I thought you had more ideas than that." Luca bares his teeth. "Fine, I'll tell you. If they survive, it's because they've learned what power is."

Power. Jowy closes his eyes and the word chimes in his head, resonates to match the steady thrum of his Rune. "What kind of power, your Highness?"

When he opens his eyes, Luca stares at him like he's grown an extra head—and claps Jowy on the shoulder hard enough to make his knees tremble, laughing all the while.

"What _kind_ of power?" he repeats. "Ha! Damn it all, boy, don't tell me you forgot! Power's simple. Power is this—" He holds his gauntleted fist a hair away from Jowy's cheek, and Jowy fights not to flinch. "And power is this," he continues, indicating the sword at his side. "Power is _death_ , boy! Power is holding pitiful lives in your hands and deciding whether you'll crush them or not, and there's not a damned thing anyone else can do about it."

Jowy swallows, and Luca circles him as though he's caught the scent of blood. "Your allies, your enemies, it's all the same," he says. "Either way, they die at your command."

No. There has to be more to it than that.

"But that's only true on the battlefield, isn't it?" Jowy asks, and tacks on a "your Highness" before Luca's scowl deepens any further.

"It's true everywhere. Pah. What, do you think it's any different at court? Those worms don't bow and scrape out of honor or loyalty or any of that crap. They do it because they're too weak to slice off that old man's head, and they know it."

_Then why haven't you sliced off his head?_ Jowy thinks, but knows better than to say it. Saying it would mean his death. But staying silent for too long could mean his death, too, if Luca gets impatient, because even if Luca can't kill his father he can kill Jowy so easily, whenever he wants to. How is Jowy supposed to stop that? By killing Luca first? That's too simple, isn't it?

Is it?

How strong does he need to be to kill Luca Blight?

"Think about it," Luca says. "And then tell me how it felt to kill her."

***

Solon Jhee doesn't scream when they drag him off to die. He must have known it was coming. Out of the corner of his eye, Jowy sees Seed grimace; Culgan says nothing, but holds himself more stiffly than usual. Jowy files that information away. He can't act on it now, obviously, but if Seed and Culgan aren't Luca's men...

"First, we'll take Greenhill," Luca says, turning to face them again. "Will someone here volunteer for command?"

Greenhill. What does Jowy know about Greenhill? It's surrounded by thick forest, and its walls are even harder to breach than Muse's, if some of the soldiers' gossip is to be believed. Most of its soldiers are militia, and any one of the Highland companies surpasses its defenders in number. But size isn't a guarantee of victory. Solon Jhee learned that.

The tent is silent, and Luca snarls. "Is there a worthy general anywhere among you?"

It's an invitation.

Jowy accepts it.

 

\---  
\--

.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jowy makes his bid for power, and ends up with far more than he bargained for.

No plan is too simple for an incompetent commander to ruin. Or almost ruin, in this case. Jowy and his forces and the Muse refugees arrive in time to rescue Rowd's worthless neck, and the look on Rowd's face almost makes saving his life worth it. He dismisses most of Rowd's forces, and no one other than Rowd himself questions Jowy's decision. It's strange, but not unwelcome. Jowy figures that the men are happy to be escaping with their skins intact, after the near-disaster.

His men do protest when he announces his plan to free the soldiers from Muse, and protest even louder when he re-arms them. They quiet down when Jowy points out the Highland soldiers disguised in Muse's ranks, joining them in their march through Greenhill's gate.

He wonders how much he'll even need the saboteurs. With Greenhill's food stores shrinking and everyone's tempers fraying, the outcome's almost inevitable. It's been inevitable since Teresa Wisemail decided to welcome the soldiers in. Did she know what she was setting herself up for? He'll get the chance to ask her soon, if the reports of fighting in Greenhill's streets that his scouts send him are right.

They are, as it happens. Greenhill's gates open from the inside, and not a drop of Highland blood's been shed since Jowy took command.

His soldiers celebrate well into the night and drink to his health. Seed says the beer is the coldest he's tasted in years. Jowy can't tell. His lips and fingertips and tongue feel numb.

***

"The students are not to be harmed," Jowy repeats, because it's better to say it too often than not often enough. "Understood?"

"Understood, sir." The captain salutes. "I'll see to it that my men behave themselves."

"Good."

"Why should they?" Rowd appears at Jowy's elbow, and it occurs to him that he could have Rowd disciplined for insubordination now. Maybe he should, to drive home which one of them is in command now. The captain eyes them both, hesitates, inches away. Jowy doesn't blame him.

"The acting mayor is in hiding, likely somewhere in this city or in the surrounding forest," Jowy says. "Her people love her, and if they don't want us to find her, we won't. We have to win their cooperation. Burning their homes to the ground and harming the students won't let us do that."

Rowd scowls. "If his Highness was here—"

"His Highness gave me the command. You saw as much." _You could have volunteered_ , Jowy doesn't say. _Then you could have killed all the children you wanted to._ "And these are my orders. I've given the citizens of Greenhill my word that they won't be harmed unless they take up arms against us, and that we'll make sure they're fed. I gave the students my word that they'll be able to continue their studies in peace."

"And you think that'll keep them quiet?"

Jowy ignores the scoff in those words. "They're hungry and they're exhausted. We're offering them peace."

"Offering them weakness, more like. Think they'll trust a word out of your liar's mouth after your trick with the Muse soldiers?"

Jowy grits his teeth, stares ahead. "Yes," he says, and doesn't add more. Why bother explaining himself to Rowd when he doesn't have to? "Return to your tent and wait for your orders. You're dismissed."

Rowd makes his salute look like an obscene gesture.

***

Jowy has a tent to himself again. It's the largest one in the field, with Highland's colors decorating the flap, but he never feels like he has much space in it. Even when no one's standing around the meeting table, their echoes fill the space, thicken the air enough to leave impressions of their shapes in it. 

_If you stand above other men, you cannot hide from them,_ Marcel told Jowy once. _Hundreds, even thousands, of eyes look up at you._

Five thousand of them now. Five thousand, not counting Greenhill's citizens and Muse's soldiers, and not counting everyone receiving reports of what he's doing. He sits on the edge of his bed, flexes his fingers. The edges of his Rune glow in the light from the globes planted around his tent; the Rune soaks more and more of that glow in until it's trapped under his skin, spreading up his arm. Everyone's watching the Rune, too, and some of them might know its power better than he does. It's strange—he always feels its presence, but he's had so little time to pay real attention to it, explore it beyond the flashes of itself it reveals to him unasked. 

If it's a remnant of the first Sword, the one born from the tear Darkness shed, it should be able to destroy anything. So why can't it destroy Luca Blight? Does Luca have a True Rune, too? If he does, shouldn't Jowy be able to sense that?

Maybe it has nothing to do with Luca and everything to do with him. Maybe the Rune hasn't shown its full power because he's not strong enough to unlock it.

He shuts his eyes and stretches his hand over his head, palm facing out. The Rune pulses faster and faster and he focuses on that, breathes to its rhythm. There are different gates that control the flow of magic through his body, and Jowy unlocks the lowest one, the one that governs the most basic spells. Energy surges through his veins, seeks to escape through and be shaped by his Rune, but he contains it, redirects it, channels it through the second gate. His eyes sear and water and that won't be the worst of it if he keeps this up, but he has to, has to see just what this power can become if he builds it enough, shapes it right. The third gate opens next and Jowy can't tell if his lungs are filling with air or with raw magic—he's never tried to contain it this long, never made it double back on itself until the pathways through his body sing and chatter with power—

"General Atreides, sir!"

Jowy snaps to attention and the flow of magic surges one final time, then stills. His bones ache, but at least none of the magic escaped his body. His Rune still seethes black as a brand, though, and he tugs his sleeve over it before he says, "Enter."

"It's Captain Rowd, sir," the soldier says, pushing the flap aside, his face the color of old porridge. "There was an incident in Greenhill—"

Jowy stands. "What kind of incident?"

"Sir." The soldier swallows. "There was a rumor that Lady Teresa was hiding in an inn at town, and—"

He can guess the rest. Damn it. _Damn_ it. "Was anyone killed?"

"No, sir, but they threatened to torture—"

"Bring him to me." He should have done this at the beginning, should have forced Rowd into line from the start. Now his men's confidence might slip through his fingers, and Greenhill's trust, and if he loses those this has all been for nothing. "If he refuses, bring him here under guard."

Rowd apparently doesn't refuse, because only two soldiers accompany him to where Jowy waits. A good portion of the camp's gathered around, too. Good. This can't be a private matter anymore.

"Captain Rowd," Jowy says, and waits. Rowd doesn't salute, and Jowy continues to wait.

"What?" Rowd finally snaps. "You got something to say or not?"

"Something to say or not, _sir_." Seed steps out from the growing crowd, and Jowy tries not to let his shoulders unstiffen too visibly. Is he starting to win Culgan and Seed over? It's dangerous to assume, but still.

"He's your commanding officer." Culgan joins Seed, and the air is still from all the drawn and waiting breaths. "You know the right form of address."

" _Sir_ ," Rowd grits out, spit gathering in the gaps between his teeth.

"Do you remember what I promised the citizens of Greenhill, Captain?"

Rowd glares.

Some of his Rune's energy still lingers in Jowy's body, and he draws on it now to sharpen his voice, straighten his spine, make the air around him hum. "I asked you a direct question, Captain."

"Yes, _sir_." Rowd doesn't stop glaring.

"Then why do I hear that you and your men broke into an inn and assaulted its owners?"

"Because they were hiding—"

"Did you find Lady Teresa in the inn, Captain?" Jowy asks.

"…no. Sir."

"Did you find any sign that she'd ever been there?"

When Rowd stays silent for too long, a man steps forward, his eyes cast down. Jowy recognizes him even with his face half-hidden. He's one of the men usually in Rowd's company, standing in attendance around his tent. Jowy keeps his face impassive, but his pulse picks up.

"We didn't, sir," the man says.

"Thank you, soldier," Jowy says, and the man can't step back into the crowd quickly enough. "You broke my word, Captain Rowd."

Finally, Rowd looks Jowy straight on, and his sneer breaks open into a laugh. His eyes are small and watery, Jowy realizes, like a rat's. "Your word?" Rowd repeats, and Jowy's hand closes around the hilt of his sword—no. It isn't his sword. It's the knife.

"What good is a traitor's word, _sir_?" Rowd continues, and Jowy darts forward, slams his knee into the back of Rowd's before Rowd can duck away. Rowd's knees smack the ground hard and Jowy draws the knife and holds it to Rowd's throat in the space of a breath. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Culgan inclining his head in approval. He'll process that later. Either the soldiers have fallen silent or something is muffling Jowy's ears, some thick whirring sound that isn't quite a roar.

Rowd's voice cuts through it, even though he only mutters. "Or a traitor's blade."

Jowy steadies his hand, presses the tip of the knife into Rowd's throat. Sweat beads on the point, not blood, but if he pushed in a little harder—Rowd understands, for once, and goes still as a stone.

 _Luca would be laughing now_ , a part of Jowy thinks, one that's stepped back from the rest of this. "Ask Anabelle," he says. He says it quietly, but with the field this still, everyone hears.

He pulls the knife away from Rowd's neck. Rowd doesn't move. "You are relieved of command until His Highness or I reinstate you," Jowy says. Rowd jerks forward like he means to tackle Jowy to the ground and several of Jowy's other captains move in, swords readied to restrain Rowd if they need to. He doesn't have time to marvel at it. "Tomorrow, you will make a formal apology to the citizens of Greenhill and tell them that we offer twenty thousand potch and Highland citizenship to whomever brings us Teresa Wisemail. _Alive_."

Rowd's jaw works, but he says nothing, and unless Jowy's mistaken, his silence is less sullen this time.

"I'll decide on appropriate punishments for your men later." Jowy sheathes the knife at last, but the sound of it scraping into its sheath lingers. "You're dismissed."

Rowd hauls himself to his feet stiffly, like his limbs are thawing out after a deep freeze. "Sir," he says, the corner of his lip curling, but leaves it at that. Jowy stays where he is until Rowd disappears from view, and waits for the rest of the soldiers to trickle off. They do, but Seed and Culgan stay behind, join Jowy to watch the rest leave.

"Not bad," Seed says. "My old man would like your style."

"Do you think Greenhill's citizens will accept your offer?" Culgan asks.

Jowy keeps his focus ahead. "Only one of them has to."

***

One of them might well have. Jowy doesn't get the chance to find out.

His gut tells him that Rowd won't make good on his apology, or on Jowy's promise, so he follows him to the town center. His gut didn't tell him that Nanami and Pilika and Riou would be waiting there, too. Or that Riou would see him and _look_ at him, and that look would seal Jowy's voice away better than any words ever could. The crowd surges and turns in on itself and Riou vanishes into the thick of it. Jowy knows what order he's supposed to give, the only order anyone could give when they spot the enemy commander walking around in their territory, but the words won't come.

Teresa's people won't let her surrender. They beg her to leave, to save herself so she can return to save them. And as long as she's free, Highland will never truly hold Greenhill. But Luca doesn't have to know that, does he?

It shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter either way. He went to Greenhill to prove himself and Greenhill doesn't mean anything more to him than that. Why should it?

He's still wondering about that when Pilika tries to run into his arms again.

She cries and clutches at his coat and tries desperately to form his name, and if only Jowy could take her into his arms again and hold her high, hear her laugh—

Then Nanami's shouting at him, holding back tears, telling him that it's all a lie and he can't be following Luca's orders, and he knows it's as much of a lie to tell himself he can hold Pilika like that again.

But it's not too late for the three of them, and he tells Riou to run. _Relinquish command of the Unicorn Army, and run. You'll only make this longer and bloodier if you don't. There's no reason for you to fight._ Greenhill doesn't mean anything to Riou, either, does it?

"I can't just run away," Riou says, and his eyes have never been that sharp before, that clear. His silence after that is almost as piercing as his stare is, and it cuts deeper than any knife, any sword. Jowy wants to tell him to stop, to go, just go, to take him by the shoulders and make Riou understand that he'll never win this, he _can't_ , he and Nanami and Pilika will end up with their heads mounted on Luca Blight's battlements and Jowy will have to watch them die and stop himself from screaming.

Riou leaves, finally, and it's all Jowy can do not to fall to his knees. Thank the gods that Seed and Culgan drive Rowd off for him; it gives him enough time to pull himself together and ask them why, at least.

"We love Highland," Seed says. "It's a wonderful country."

"We can't stand idly by and let it be destroyed," says Culgan. "The only thing Luca Blight will bring about is ruin, and that has never been our intention."

They pledge their loyalty to him. They don't bend their knees or offer their swords, but they don't need to. What they're offering is almost too much, and he knows he doesn't deserve it, but he _needs_ this, and he does treasure this, and he knows it isn't enough when he says, "Thank you."

"So now that we're doing this," Seed says, "there's someone you should meet."

***

"Thank the gods we don't have to go all the way to Kalekka, huh?" Seed crosses his arms and leans back, surveys the darkened windows of the house they're standing in front of. _House_ isn't quite right; it's not as large as the Atreides estate in Kyaro but it's stately enough in its own way, two stone storeys with a grooved roof the color of pewter. The surrounding forest is thick enough that the lawn in front stands out as the only flat ground in sight. There are no other houses nearby, only a well with the same architecture as the house and a storehouse around the far corner.

"Kalekka's in the Scarlet—Toran," Jowy corrects himself, "isn't it?"

"Yeah. Usually he's down there these days, but I told him to come on up a while back. Figured he wouldn't want to miss any of this." Seed raises his fist high in the air, pounds on the door loudly enough that a group of crickets chirp in alarm, and hollers, "Hey, old man!"

A deep, humorless voice answers, "I'm not giving you any money."

"I don't need money! Luca Blight pays well."

Culgan rubs the bridge of his nose like he's trying hard not to sigh.

A few moments later, the bolt scrapes through the lock and a man opens the door from the inside. He's tall and thickset, with a dark moustache and a heavy scarf, and Jowy gets the distinct impression that he's looking over all three of the men on his doorstep at once. "Did he send you here?"

"Nope." Seed takes a few steps back, jerks his thumb at Jowy. "I brought a friend."

"I'm not giving your friend any money either."

Seed grins. "How about a kingdom?"

The man turns to Jowy, eyes tight and shadowed. "You're Atreides."

"Yes," Jowy says, and meets his gaze.

He nods. "Come inside. Culgan, good to see you again. Seed, go entertain your nephew."

"I have a nephew?"

"He's seven."

"Well, shit."

"Please don't swear in front of him, he repeats everything he hears. Atreides, come this way," he adds, and indicates a sitting room to his left, overlooking the forest.

Jowy brushes the hilt of his sword with his thumb, but the house doesn't seem to be crawling with soldiers, and the man doesn't look like much of a fighter. Not that he should place much trust in appearances, considering. The man raises his hand and waves over a servant, who doesn't look like much of a fighter either, then sends him out for wine. He and Jowy sit down at a scratched wood table that looks like it's seen more books than guests.

"I expected a boy," the man says. "I'm pleasantly surprised."

"Sir," Jowy says, because it's better than _what?_

"You have no idea who I am, do you."

"General Seed didn't mention your name."

"He's become more prudent in recent years." There's the hint of a sigh on the man's breath, but no smile. "I'm sure you can make an educated guess. How is your recent history?"

This man's connected to Kalekka, Seed said. That means more than just a town's name, doesn't it? He thinks back to the books on his stepfather's shelves, remembers showing one to his tutor and pointing to the words he couldn't understand at the time. _Atrocity._ _Depredation._ _Carnage._ _It's why Jowston can't be trusted_ , his tutor told him.

"Were you there during the massacre at Kalekka?" Jowy asks.

"They still call it a massacre up north," the man says. "That surprises me as well. Yes, you could say that."

The servant returns with three glasses and a cask of wine. He pours for the man first, who drinks, then offers the glass he drank from to Jowy while the servant refills the next one.

Jowy eyes it, his hand wavering in front of the glass. Why did the man do that? Is he trying to prove that the drink isn't poisoned? The blood drains from Jowy's fingertips. Of course. If the man isn't built like a warrior or marked like a mage, then he must have other ways of defending himself. And if that's true, drinking from the same glass as that man is no guarantee of safety. He sets his hand back down on the table.

A long moment passes while the second and third glasses are filled, and the man's eyes don't leave Jowy the entire time.

"Bring that to Culgan," he tells the servant, and offers his hand to Jowy between the other two untouched glasses. "Leon Silverberg. You've made the right choice, Atreides."

 _Silverberg_? Jowy hopes he hasn't stumbled into an even worse nest of vipers, but it's probably better to have a Silverberg working for him than against him. He accepts Leon's hand; Leon's handshake is firm but not aggressive. "Thank you."

Leon nods, relinquishes Jowy's hand, and takes up one of the wine glasses. He drinks, and makes no indication that Jowy should do the same. "Are you still at a stage where you could give up on this and keep your head?"

"No."

"Good. So you have me. How do you plan to use me?"

"I can't kill Luca Blight through raw strength," he says, and tries not to flinch as the words twist in his chest. "I need a different kind of power."

"Good, because I'm not in the business of providing raw strength." Leon sets his glass down, taps a finger on the base. "That's still not what I asked you. If you want ideas on how to kill him, go to any tavern south of Lakewest. I'm sure you'll hear a thousand of them. What do I have that you need?"

"An idea that works."

"Ha," Leon says, but it isn't a laugh. "In that case, why haven't you gone over to the Unicorn Army?"

The question stings more than a slap. Jowy looks down.

Leon doesn't press. After another long sip of wine, he glances over Jowy's shoulder at Culgan in the doorway. "Good vintage?"

"Excellent." Culgan says. "Kanakan?"

"Zexen."

"A little new to call it a vintage."

"Perhaps," Leon agrees, and turns back to Jowy. "How much does Luca trust you?"

He puzzles that out while he speaks. "It's hard to say. I know some of his men are still watching me, and I know he wouldn't hesitate to kill me. But he hasn't killed me yet." He hesitates. "I think—I think he sees something in me. Something that interests him."

"Show me," Leon says, with a slight wave of his right hand.

Jowy understands, and raises his own. The Rune's outline isn't as stark as it was, but its edges still shine wetly in the lamplight.

"Knowing Luca, it's not that it interests him. He intends to keep close what he can't take by force, the same as you."

It makes sense. He lowers his hand. "So what do I do with that?"

"Use him the same way. What does he have that you can't take?"

Jowy opens his mouth, then closes it.

Leon drinks, this time at length, and the servant comes to refill his glass, then Culgan's. Jowy's remains untouched. Jowy hears, faintly, Seed and a child laughing in some other part of the house. _Seven,_ Leon had said. His grandson isn't much older than Pilika, and here he is, laughing.

"You did well at Greenhill," Leon says.

"Thank you."

"What was your reward for that?"

"Luca said he'd grant me a request. He didn't specify what kind."

"So, short of his head and his kingdom, what do you want most of his?"

"I don't want his kingdom," Jowy begins—and stops.

Oh.

"Better for him to think you want his kingdom than for him to think you want his head," Leon says.

"It's not _his_ kingdom," he says, and leaves the _yet_ implied. "Agares is still reigning, and enough men are loyal to him." Jowy pauses. "And Princess Jillia is in the line of succession, too, though I don't think she'd contest her brother's claim."

"But should something happen to Luca," Leon prompts, with a tilt of his wine glass for emphasis, "well. It's not as if he's getting married any time soon."

"He won't. But she might."

Leon nods, and if approval isn't exactly _plain_ on his face, at least it's written in the creases of his eyes. "He'll think you're just another young lord angling for power if you try for that."

"Then I'll need to show him something else, too, won't I?"

"You will," Leon says. He drinks the remainder of the wine in his glass and sets it down, empty.

***

When Jowy asks for Jillia's hand in marriage, Luca doesn't behead him on the spot. He forces himself to breathe, stare straight ahead, avert his eyes from the blade shining in Luca's hand. "I know your Highness does not make oaths lightly," he says, and lowers his voice. "Also, I've got an idea."

"What is it? Speak up." Luca raises his sword. Jowy won't let himself flinch. "If I don't like it, I promise I _will_ cut off your head."

He lowers his voice. "I shouldn't speak in front of so many, your Highness, if you take my meaning."

Luca does, and though he waves his sword dangerously close to Jowy's face he eventually sheathes it. "Come to my quarters later and tell me this idea of yours," he says. "You'd better not be wasting my precious time."

 _I won't be_ , Jowy tells himself, over and over again until Luca summons him half an hour later.

"Well?" Luca asks once the tent flap flutters shut behind Jowy, and drums his fingers on the hilt of his sword. "What's this plan?"

There isn't much point in asking Luca whether he has permission to speak freely; if he doesn't, he'll know. He might as well get to the heart of it, then. "If you make me your brother, I'll make you king."

For a moment Luca stares, silent, his hands still—and then he laughs once, sharp and cutting. "You'd make me a king?" he repeats. " _You_ would make _me_ a king. Tell me, boy, how do you plan to do that? That old bastard won't even drink water unless someone else sips it first. Gods know what he gave to Harmonia to get a pair of Howling Guild bodyguards, but he has them. And he won't grant private audiences to anyone." He scoffs. "Ha. I almost want to hear this. Let's see how long my patience lasts."

Jowy flattens his hands at his sides. _Steady_ , he reminds himself. _Steady_. "I haven't yet sworn the Knight's Oath to Highland. I'll need to before I marry Jillia."

"If you marry Jillia," Luca corrects, draws his sword just far enough out of its scabbard to make sure Jowy sees. Thankfully, he sheathes it again.

Jowy inclines his head. "As your Highness says. I know the form of the ceremony." Marcel made him and Marco learn it years ago, back when he refused to say which one of them he planned on naming heir. Well, the choice is obvious now, at least. "Only the king, the oath-taker, and a witness are present. The witness drinks the Wine of Fealty as a sign that the bond between knight and king will ripen over time—"

"To show the wine isn't poisoned, you mean." Luca lets out a short breath thick with contempt. "I know all this. What's your point?"

"After the witness drinks, the oath-taker cuts his hand and adds his blood to the wine, am I right? And the king drinks it to seal the oath."

"Yes. What of it?" Before Jowy spells it out, Luca continues: "Are you planning to poison him? I've tried. If his Howling Guild hirelings sniff out any poison on you, they'll shove it down your throat. Or they'll shove that black powder of theirs down it instead and make you swallow a lit coal after."

Oh gods. Jowy pushes those images as far away as he can before they make him cringe even more. "They won't find the poison if it's in my blood," he says, and waits.

The only thing worse than Luca's laughter is Luca's silence. The longer it stretches, the harder Jowy's pulse beats, the more his Rune itches under his skin, the tighter his throat swells from trying not to scream and the tighter his legs lock, keeping him from running. 

Then Luca chuckles, darkly, and that chuckle breaks into howls of laughter. Jowy wishes they didn't sound so human. Any other man would have run out of run out of air from laughing that hard. But Luca doesn't even sound like he's gasping for breath when he says, "You'd poison your own blood! Ha-ha! Beautiful. Bad blood will out, isn't that what they always say?" He grips Jowy's shoulder, and now his laughter shakes Jowy, too. "And now it will! Oh, it's perfect. Perfect. It's almost too good to waste on that son of a bitch."

"He can't refuse to let your Highness serve as witness to your own sister's betrothal," Jowy says, and the only sign Luca heard him at all is his widening grin.

"Damned right he can't. Heh. Just imagine the look on his face—and it can't possibly do justice to the real thing, can it? Don't pick something that'll kill him too quickly." He hauls Jowy closer, close enough for Jowy to see flecks of spittle form at the corners of Luca's mouth. His teeth are shining. Jowy shouldn't look at them. "I want to hear him scream for mercy. I want to see him writhe like the worm he is."

The heat, the _hatred_ behind that almost makes Jowy stagger backwards. He doesn't, and swallows to get his bearings. "It'll need to be a poison I can build up a resistance to."

"Of course, of course. You wouldn't want to go to all that trouble to marry my sister and end up dead by your own hand." Finally, _finally_ , he lets Jowy go. "We'll tell the old bastard the good news when we return to Highland."

"When will that be, your Highness?"

"Soon," Luca says. His smile doesn't change. He bends over the map of the City-State laid out on his table, grinds his finger into where Muse is marked as though he's crushing an insect. "But first I'll show you something. Call it a way of welcoming you into the family."

***

No one says why so many refugees fled Muse last night. By now, Jowy knows better than to ask; it's not like his orders are going to change. The edge of Luca's smile is as sharp as his blade when his and Jowy's forces thunder across the plains to the north, close the distance between them and the refugees. The refugees straggle towards the Matilda border in ragged clumps, not even the most basic of formations. Luca's orders ring out loud enough that the refugees must hear them, too.

"Hunt them down and round them up," he shouts, spurs his horse across the vanguard so all his soldiers see him. "Kill any who resist, and bring the rest of those pigs back to Muse alive!"

There are no questions, no hesitations. As one, the soldiers lift their arms and answer, "For Highland and the Prince!" Jowy lifts his sword with the rest, and if he shouted the words too, well, he can't pick his voice out in the crowd.

Some of the refugees fight back. Some. Not enough that anyone could call them a fighting force, let alone an army. Most of them scatter and run when Jowy's company charges, and at his signal the rest of his forces flank the refugees before they flee too far, pen them in. The ones who don't run—he has his orders. It's not an excuse. It's what he has to do. He doesn't have to raise his sword, really. His horse is trained to kick and trample with only the slightest flick of the reins or press of Jowy's knees, and none of the refugees he runs across are pikemen. He doesn't want to look any more closely than that.

It doesn't last long, at least. "Mercy, please," one woman cries, flings herself almost prostrate in front of Jowy's horse. The horse shies back before it crushes her, and now the other refugees nearby have taken up the cry: _mercy, mercy_.

"Do you yield?" he asks her, and with one final glance at the closed gates of Muse, she nods. Her nose is swollen, but not from crying. The crooked bump looks like a break that hasn't quite had time to heal. Jowy looks down, then over the top of her head, at the refugees slowly pulling themselves back into a clump ringed by his cavalry. 

This is his first field command in battle, isn't it?

"You know your orders," he tells his men. "Take them back to Muse. If they go peacefully, don't harm them."

None of the refugees thank him, thank the gods. Some of them keep crying, especially the youngest—

He closes his eyes, for all the good it does. "Let's go," he says. "Muse isn't far if we start now."

***

"General Atreides, sir," a soldier says when Jowy dismounts just outside the gates of Muse. "His Highness requests your presence at Jowston Hill."

Jowy nods. Seed and Culgan swing off their horses, pass off the reins to their grooms and start to walk behind him, but the soldier holds up his hand. "His Highness only requested to see General Atreides, sirs."

"Well, all right." Seed casts a wary glance at the hill. "See you later, then."

"We'll wait for you at camp," Culgan says, his tone more guarded than usual, which doesn't help the flutters in Jowy's stomach.

The shops in Muse are all boarded up and shuttered. Most of the citizens have nailed planks over their windows, and some of them glance out between the slats as he passes, only strips of their faces visible. Even more of them flood the streets, Highland soldiers shepherding them into the town squares and clinics and the parliament building, anywhere large enough to hold a number of them at once.

Jowy keeps walking. He doesn't have time to look. He shouldn't. A weight settles in his chest anyway, squeezes tighter with each step, and leaving the gates of the city proper doesn't ease it much.

At the top of the hill, Luca braces his hands on the battlements, glowers down at the city. He's taken off his gauntlets, though he hasn't bothered with the rest of his armor. "I hate this stinking city," he says when Jowy approaches.

 _Your Highness_ , Jowy means to greet him with, but can't quite.

"Look at all those maggots wriggling around," he says. It's almost the same tone he used when he spoke about his father. "Disgusting, aren't they?"

Jowy glances down, but Luca doesn't seem to expect an answer. "Pathetic," he continues. "How that sniveling old fool almost lost to them thirty years ago, I'll never know. Time to correct one more mistake of his."

But he's already won, hasn't he? What more—Jowy's throat closes. That's never a good question to ask.

"Give me that knife," Luca says. Wordlessly, Jowy hands it over, and Luca slits his palm on its blade, forms a fist and squeezes drops of his blood onto the stone.

"Come out and have your fill!" he says.

 _What?_ Jowy almost asks, but the blood at Luca's feet shines crimson, spreads to outline strange symbols that hurt Jowy's eyes to look at. The symbols blaze black and a shriek rips the air apart—winds slice his cheek, sharp enough to draw blood, and tears stream from his eyes when those winds try to yank them out of their sockets. He coughs, and the wind spins away into the clouds over Muse, gathering and churning. Luca's gripping the battlements again, mindless of his blood slicking the stone, and his face—

Jowy looks at Luca's eyes and sees the world burning in them.

That unearthly wail splits the sky again and a second wail joins it, a third. There are other screams underneath that too, he realizes, his stomach twisting. He can't pick out individual voices, and thank the gods for that. They blend into one ragged and fraying howl that he can't block out, no matter how tightly he clamps his hands over his ears. He won't ever be able to block it out. He fights his own body to move forward, to look down from the battlements and see—

Oh gods.

Oh gods.

Beside him, Luca shakes with laughter and Jowy stares into the seething darkness and can't tell _what_ he sees, only that the cloud's thickening like it's gorging itself on—on those soft lights getting sucked deeper and deeper into it. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands.

He doesn't need to see. The screaming's enough. 

The cloud condenses into a column, shoots up and takes shape: a shining silver wolf, its jaws wide and slavering. Both sets of jaws. It's grown a second head. Both heads howl, and Jowy's Rune blazes to life like never before. Its power drills into his skull and red stripes streak across his vision and every breath stabs him and it's too much. He needs to send it somewhere. He can't hold it in. He can't. Someone, _something_ , has to stop screaming.

"Look at how beautiful it is!" Luca crows, and steps away from the battlements at last. Power ripples through Jowy's veins as that thing continues its—its feeding, and he grits his teeth and fights against that pull. No. No closer.

"There's nothing like watching their filthy souls being sucked into oblivion," Luca continues.

Their souls? The blood drains from Jowy's face even if his Rune throbs hard as ever. He grips the battlements tighter, hopes Luca doesn't see.

He does. "What's wrong? Don't you think it's beautiful? I thought a bastard like you would. You are a bastard, aren't you?"

 _A bastard in what sense?_ Jowy doesn't want to ask. "Why do you say that?"

"Because you interest me," Luca says, smears the last of the blood on his hand over the stone. It's fitting. "Your eyes are different from those other pigs' eyes. There's darkness in them, lurking under the surface. You must feel it, too."

"I'm grateful to my father for taking me in, whatever his relationship is to me," Jowy mumbles. He turns and nearly runs back down the hill, and Luca doesn't have to chase him down. Jowy still feels Luca at his shoulder, his laughter echoing on and on.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If you make me your brother, I'll make you king._ In which Jowy lives up to his word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warning in this chapter for mentions of rape, as per Luca's backstory.

Leon skips the wine and goes straight for the brandy. He pours a glass for himself, drinks it all, and pours another in the same glass and offers it to Jowy. Jowy's tempted to ask for the entire bottle, but he takes the glass. His hands are still shaking, and downing half of the drink in one gulp doesn't make them shake any less. His throat sears; the backs of his eyes prickle.

The instant Jowy sets the glass down again, Leon puts more brandy in it. "Go as fast as you need."

Jowy nods, grips the glass tighter. "I walked through the streets," he says, more to the table than to Leon. "There was no one left. No one." And nothing left to mark that they'd ever been there: no shoes, no clothes, no jewelry or wallets or toys. At least the ones who died on the plains north of Muse left something behind.

Leon takes an audible breath, glances sidelong out the window. "It's not like Harmonia to give up a True Rune. I'd be more worried about that than the Rune itself."

"He didn't say how he got it," Jowy says. "I—left before he could."

"I don't know that either. I hadn't taken it into account. Now I will."

He nods mutely, stares at his drink without seeing anything more than the vague outline of the glass.

"Drink," Leon says.

He doesn't.

"Drink," Leon repeats. "We can't talk this through if your teeth are shaking."

Jowy shuts his eyes, forces more of it down his throat. It burns less this time, though he still coughs a little. When is this supposed to start working, anyway? He doesn't feel calmer. Number, maybe, but that means everything he's feeling is just waiting to rush back again.

Leon nods, waits, with his fists curled on the table and his eyes closed. "Can you tell me how he called it out?"

"He told it to, that's all." Now is the wrong time for Jowy to laugh. He does anyway, and it's twisted and weak and awful. "He borrowed my knife—his knife—and slit his palm, and he told it to come out, and it did."

"That's fortunate," Leon says. "He's not its bearer. That means he can still be killed."

"He fed tens of thousands of people to that _thing_ and didn't break a sweat." The glass chatters in Jowy's hands. "How is that fortunate?"

"It's fortunate because Luca's not immortal. He can die just like them."

The glass starts to slip through his fingers, and Jowy catches it before it shatters on the floor, somehow. "He can't die just like them," he says. "Does it even matter whether he bears it or not? I'm a True Rune bearer and look what it's gotten me. I couldn't do anything."

"Not without giving yourself away, no."

"No. _I couldn't do anything._ " He'd slam his fist on the table, but he can't summon up the energy. It would be an even emptier threat than any of the ones he's issued so far. "I just—watched. And he slaughtered them. Just like—"

His throat catches.

Leon gets up from the table, goes to the window and draws the curtain shut. Jowy watches, shuffles his heels under the table but doesn't have the impulse or even the will to stand and follow him.

"He can die just like them," Leon repeats. "And he will. Once Agares is dead, he won't have more than a month. We have to work quickly, we have to work _now_ , but it can be done."

"How?" Jowy asks, flat.

"First, I'm calling in my help from the south," Leon says, ignoring Jowy's tone. "Then I'm making use of the Unicorn Army."

"You're what?"

"Do you want this over quickly or not?"

"I just want it over."

Leon nods and shuts the other curtain, returns to the table. "Once Agares is dead, the generals sworn to him will desert Luca, or he'll drive them off. Either way, the end result is the same unless he kills them. And even if he does, I can work with that. Luca will try to crush the Unicorn Army in one stroke, because he can. If the Unicorn Army is desperate enough to believe that we want Luca dead as well, they'll take my bait and kill him for us, and no one on our side will be left to thwart us either."

"And what if they can't kill him?"

"Then we have more to worry about than ending this war."

Jowy shoves the glass away but Leon pushes it back towards him, fills it. Get the Unicorn Army to kill Luca for them. It sounds so simple. But what's to stop Luca from ferrying the Beast Rune across the lake and unleashing it on—

Leon sets the decanter of brandy down with an audible scratch. "If we can ensure that it will work, are you prepared to do it?"

"I have to, don't I?"

"Yes."

"Then I'd better be prepared."

"Grandfather," a small voice pipes in from the doorway, "Seed told me to ask you how a blanket can have a wrong side and a right side. He didn't say to ask you now, but he and Culgan weren't minding me anymore so I thought it would be a good time. Seed said—"

"Albert," Leon says, cutting the child off, "what did I tell you about repeating things Seed says?"

Jowy turns. The little boy in the doorway is around Pilika's age, maybe a little older, with thick red hair and skin so pale it's hard to tell where his neck ends and his shirt begins. "I know what you said," Albert goes on, "but he said to ask you, so I thought that didn't count."

"Hello," Jowy says, and hopes he doesn't lean against the table too noticeably when he stands. "You're Master Leon's grandson, aren't you?"

"Yes, thank you," he says. "My name is Albert Silverberg. I'm seven years old, eight months, and six days. It'll be eight months and seven days tomorrow. Are you the boy who wants to be King?"

"Who told you that?"

"Culgan. Not Seed. I'm not repeating what Seed said because Grandfather told me not to."

Leon sighs, shakes his head on the way to the door. "Excuse me," he says to Jowy as he passes,   
"I'll leave you two alone."

Jowy doesn't know whether to thank Leon or not. He looks at Albert again, and Albert looks back at him expectantly, rocks forward onto his toes with his hands clasped behind his back.

"So are you?" he asks.

"Am I what?"

"The boy who wants to be King that Culgan was talking about," Albert says, looks at Jowy like he really should have known. "I don't want to be King, so I know he doesn't mean me. And you're a boy. So I thought it might be you. So are you?"

"It's dangerous to say those kinds of things."

"But are you or aren't you?'

Jowy traces his thumbnail over his palm. "Not exactly."

"Oh," Albert says, shuffles in his socks. "Grandfather helped make someone a King once. I read about it in a book. He says he had to, though. Like he didn't want to."

"You can already read?" Jowy asks, and leaves the rest alone.

"I can read anything!" Albert says.

He almost has to touch his face to make sure he's actually smiling, but he is. "I used to read everything, too. I think I was a little older than you when I started, though."

"Did you forget how?" The expression of abject horror on Albert's face is almost comical. "You can forget how to read?"

"No," he says, and kneels down to ruffle Albert's hair. It's softer than Pilika's and about as thick, but he doesn't laugh and squirm the way Pilika did, just looks politely puzzled. Leon must not be the most affectionate grandparent. Not surprising. "You can't forget something like that. I just haven't had the time to read lately."

"Oh," Albert says. "Good. I wouldn't want to forget that. Forgetting anything is bad. Grandfather says that we should do everything we can to not forget anything we've ever done, even the bad stuff, because if we don't remember it we might do it again and that's stupid because we did it again."

Jowy drops his eyes. "Your grandfather's right." Could he even forget, he wonders? Or would the memories fester under his skin if he tried?

"Grandfather is never wrong," Albert says, matter-of-factly.

 _I hope you're right_ , Jowy doesn't say. Instead, he holds Albert's hands in his own. They're small enough that he really only needs one to clasp them both. "Keep reading, all right? I won't ask you to promise me, but you should keep reading, as long as it makes you happy."

Albert might have been awkward about being touched before but he smiles brightly now. "It does make me happy. Don't worry, I won't stop. But Grandfather says it's bad to promise, so I won't promise, except I don't think I'll ever want to stop."

"Stop what?" Leon asks, framed in the doorway.

"Reading," Albert says.

"Reading," Leon repeats, more for Jowy than Albert.

Jowy sits back in his chair, straighter than before. "Reading."

Leon nods, curt, and Jowy knows he's said what he needed to.

***

Marcel never took Jowy to court, but he let Marco come with him a few times. When Marco came back, he spent hours chattering about the high white towers and the funny hats the guards had to wear, all the music he danced to and all the food he ate. Jowy compared Marco's stories with the sketches and descriptions of L'Renouille in his father's books and imagined what it would be like to watch those gates open for him. The gate's even grander than the drawings make it seem, broad enough for a full company to pass through, and the stone beasts flanking it seem like natural outgrowths of the rock itself. Jowy's horse slows and he stares up, up to where Highland's pennant snaps in the wind.

"Your mouth's open, country boy," Seed says. His horse nudges Jowy's, and Seed leans over to grab Jowy's reins and flick them lightly.

"Sorry," Jowy says.

"Nah, don't be. She's a hell of a city, huh?" Seed leans back in his saddle, and the wind teases his bangs. "And when you've been away for as long as we have, coming back makes her feel all new again."

"We'll show you around later," Culgan says, riding up behind them. "Right now, His Majesty's riding out to greet us. We should get that over with as quickly as possible."

Seed raises an eyebrow. "He's leaving the palace? Can't remember the last time he did that."

"Neither can I."

"I guess he's looking forward to meeting you," Seed says to Jowy.

"Or he wants to get it over with."

Culgan almost cracks a smile.

"Go on." Seed smacks Jowy's horse in the flank, and Jowy tries not to lurch forward in his saddle when the horse trots forward. He's never going to look at home on one of these things, is he? Sighing, he guides his horse to the front of the column, takes his place at Luca's right.

He expected to find Luca scowling, snapping orders at his attendants and swearing at any Highlanders foolish enough to run into the street. But there's a smile curling across Luca's jaw instead, and he lifts his hand to acknowledge the shouts and cheers as he rides forward. "Citizens of Highland!" he calls. "Muse and Greenhill have fallen to us, and General Windamier is crushing Southwind as we speak. But our struggle hasn't ended. The souls of those brave boys in the Unicorn Brigade still cry for vengeance!"

He clenches his fist, and the crowd roars the same way the soldiers did.

"The City-States think they can mock us," Luca goes on, his eyes flashing bright as a spear in the sun. "Do you know what they call their army? The _Unicorn_ Army. They're brazen enough to name themselves after the children they massacred!"

Outrage spreads through the crowd like wildfire, burning hotter and hotter with each new whisper, and Jowy bites his cheek hard. _Riou's_ brazen? Gods, Luca must be laughing at them all now, and they can't even see it. 

"Jowston owes us blood for their treachery, and we'll have it from them!" Luca draws his sword from his sheath, and the sound echoes louder in Jowy's ears than the cry of the crowd. They look just as earnest as Luca's soldiers did on the plains above Muse. If they had standards, they'd be waving them now. It hurts to watch. They're all so swept up in cheering that they don't hear the trumpets heralding King Agares's arrival until Agares and his retainers are well down the street. 

"King of Highland," Luca says once the noise finally quiets. He doesn't sheathe his sword. Agares doesn't wear one, Jowy notices. He takes them both in. Luca sits tall in his saddle, the gold filigree on his plate winks in the sun, and hundreds of seasoned fighters bristle at his back. Agares can't entirely hide the droop of his shoulders or the sag of his jaw, and his robes and retainers both look like they couldn't take much of a hit. One of these men looks like a king, and the crowd knows it too, even if they'd never admit it out loud.

"Welcome home, my son," Agares says, and for a moment Luca's mouth twists with rage. Then he's smiling again, with more teeth than before. "How long will you grace us with your presence?"

"Not long. How can I, when I still owe the people of Highland the head of Genkaku's son?"

The crowd cheers again and Jowy's Rune sears, sick and hot. _He's not a traitor_ , Jowy wants to scream. _The real traitor's standing in front of you and you're too busy_ cheering _for him to see._

His horse nickers at him, and Jowy looks down and sees he's knotted the reins around his hand tight enough to fray his gloves. He unwinds them slowly, his hands still shaking.

"But I'll stay for my dear sister's wedding, of course," Luca continues. Before anyone gets out another word, he grips Jowy's wrist and yanks it up high. "I give you Jowy Atreides, General of the Third Company, who brought Greenhill to its knees without spilling a drop of Highland blood!"

When they were younger, Jowy and Nanami and Riou acted out stories about great leaders from the past: Maroux Blight, Kranach Rugner, Flare en Kuldes. At the end, Nanami always described how all the people of the land cheered for their brave hero. She threw in a few cheers of her own, too, and startled the birds out of nearby trees. Jowy always blushed a little when she did that, but he couldn't help smiling. The people of L'Renouille are cheering as loudly as Nanami ever did, their faces tilted up towards him and Luca, and Jowy only smiles out of reflex.

"Well, my royal sister?" Jowy's the only one close enough to see the corner of Luca's mouth twitch at _royal_. "Will you have him?"

Jillia rides out from behind Agares, and Jowy holds his breath. But if she's surprised to see him again, considering how their last meeting went, she doesn't show it other than a faint blush. Then again, she didn't exactly seem _surprised_ when she served him tea. Luca Blight's her brother; there's no way she startles easily.

"You and he have my consent, brother," she says. Jowy wonders if he should ride forward, too, but Luca solves that problem for him by smacking his horse ahead.

Agares's lips thin under his moustache, and when he says, "If my daughter wishes it, then so do I," it's as though he's forcing the words through his jaw.

Luca doesn't wait for his father to finish speaking, and nobody's willing to try and cut Luca off. Most of them might not be paying much attention to Agares at all. Luca brings Jowy's hand up again, wraps his fingers around Jowy's fist. Jowy braces himself for the sound of his bones cracking, but that's not what Luca wants today. "All hail my younger brother," he shouts, "and your new Prince!"

"All hail!" the crowd roars back, and _For Prince Luca and Lord Atreides!_ , and _For the honor of Highland!_

Honor. Jowy wishes he could laugh right now. But if Luca isn't, then like hell Jowy can.

***

Technically Jowy's already barged into Jillia's quarters without asking, so knocking and requesting permission to enter shouldn't be difficult. Still, his fist hovers in front of the door, and when he does tap his knuckles against the wood the sound's as faint as a whisper.

Jillia must hear anyway, because she asks, "Who is it?"

What's he supposed to call himself now? "It's Jowy," he says. That's simplest. "May I come in, your Highness?"

"You may," she says, and he pushes the door open.

The room's arranged the same way her tent was, with the same tea service laid out on the table and the same duvet spread over her bed. She has straightforward tastes—no scrollwork on the wood, no embroidery on her curtains, no silver or gold inlays anywhere—but expensive ones. Jowy recognizes sandalwood when he smells it, and every piece of furniture in the room's buffed and polished to mirror-brightness.

Jillia rises from the table to greet him, her skirts barely rustling as she stands. "Welcome, my lord."

"Thank you, your Highness," he says, scratches the back of his hand. "You don't need to call me 'my lord,' though."

"I should accustom myself to doing so, if we're to be wed." She lifts her chin, takes him in. "I understand that you asked for my hand as a reward for your victory at Greenhill?"

"Yes, your Highness."

"You may address me as 'my lady,'" she says. "It's only proper."

"My lady, then."

She inclines her head. "I doubted the idea was my brother's."

"He agreed to it."

"Oh, of course. If he hadn't, he'd have beheaded you for your insolence. Would you care to sit, my lord?" she asks, gestures to the tea service.

He nods, and they do. She pours just as elegantly as she did last time, her fingers and wrist and forearm forming one graceful line. He never thought anyone practiced that sort of thing, but she must.

"It seems like you enjoy this," Jowy says. Well, it's not the stupidest observation he's ever made.

Jillia takes a slow sip of her tea, inhales the steam. It brings a tinge of warmth to her cheeks. So she isn't made of porcelain, at least. "I don't have as many opportunities to do this as you might assume," she says. "So yes, I treasure the chances I do get."

She never seemed to have much company in Kyaro, either, other than her dog. He knows better than to bring that up, though. Does she know he used to climb the wall to get a glimpse of her? If she does, he can't tell; her expression's almost as unreadable as Leon's, with the same schooled neutrality. He envies her, a little, then remembers how she must have learned it. His envy withers.

"Strange, isn't it," she says after another sip, "that every time I've seen you, I assumed I'd never see you again. And yet here we are."

"It is strange," he agrees, and hesitates. "But I hope it's all right."

"I did agree to the match," she points out, and glances at his cup. It sits on his saucer, untouched, the steam shrinking. "Is the tea not to your liking? I can prepare a fresh pot if my lord wishes."

"I'm sorry," Jowy says. He brings the cup to his lips, but they won't part. Jillia says nothing. The fire crackles in the grate, and with both of them this quiet he hears the steam hissing from the teapot, too. This is ridiculous. She had more cause to poison him last time than she does now, and she didn't then. Or maybe she has more cause; she must never have expected to marry him, after all. He sets the cup back down, averts his eyes.

"I understand," she says. "You served as my brother's adjutant before he appointed you to the high command, am I correct? I'd mistrust anything set before me, after that."

"I know you aren't him."

"But we do share the same blood," she points out, and something about the way her voice quavers makes him look up. She isn't looking at him. She's stroking the rim of the saucer with her finger the way he used to do when he waited for Marcel to dismiss him from the dinner table. "I expected you to despise me for that."

He blinks. "What?"

"But instead you seek to mingle your blood with mine, and his," she continues. "When we last met, I recall that you told me you were prepared to dishonor yourself, if need be, to put an end to this war."

Jowy tenses, glances at the corners of the room and the closet and the dust ruffle and anywhere else a spy might hide. 

"Do you dishonor yourself by marrying me, my lord?"

What is he supposed to say to that? Damn. What _can_ he tell her? Is there any safe answer? Of course there isn't, not here. He drives his nail into his palm. "I've done worse to dishonor myself than this," he says, which is true. "And I don't intend to dishonor you, or to be cruel." That's true, too.

"I know cruel men," Jillia says simply. "I have never considered you one. Even now, I do not."

"My lady," he says.

"But you still carry such sorrow with you. Even more now than you did then, I would imagine."

He says nothing, thinks of nothing.

"I see." She closes her eyes. "I had hoped my marriage wouldn't occasion unhappiness for anyone, least of all my betrothed."

 _I'm not unhappy_ , he tries to say, and can't. _I promise I'll be a good husband to you_ , he should say, and can't, because he's sick of breaking promises he meant to keep. _I'm sorry_ , he can't say, and won't. "I want to make the best of this, my lady," he says at last, because it's all he can.

"As do I. And I expect we shall." She opens her eyes again; they're shining at the corners. "My lord—my word carries little enough weight here, but I meant it when I gave you my consent."

If Jowy looks away now, he'll be the biggest coward in Highland. He keeps his eyes on hers, raises the teacup to his mouth, drinks. The tea's cool but not undrinkable, subtle and light like a summer flower. "Thank you," he says, and sets the cup down.

Jillia tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She doesn't smile the way she used to in Kyaro, when she thought no one was looking, but she does smile.

He wonders if she's the kind of woman he could have loved, and decides he doesn't want to know the answer.

***

Seed looks at Jowy like he's sprouted a second head. "Of course there's going to be a ball," he says. "Didn't your mother read you any stories when you were a kid? You're marrying a princess. That means a ball."

"Even when Highland's at war?"

Culgan shrugs. "People need the distraction."

Which people, Jowy wonders? He doubts most of the people on the guest list have been within a league of a real battlefield. "Do any of the Blights even _like_ balls?"

"Including you?" Seed asks.

"I wouldn't know," Jowy says. "I've never been to one."

"They don't, but hell, at least his Highness and his Majesty can be happy that the other one's miserable."

Culgan coughs into his fist. Jowy's gotten better at translating his coughs and silences and sighs. Unless he's mistaken, this one means _we're in an open hallway in the heart of the palace, and anyone walking through the gardens can walk right up to us_.

"What?" Seed rolls his eyes. "Half the palace is saying the same damn thing. And as for her Highness—well, who knows? She might like getting the chance to dance with someone for once."

"She doesn't dance?"

"No one seems inclined to ask her," Culgan says.

"No one wants his Highness to rip their jaws off for asking, you mean," Seed cuts in. "Do _you_ dance?"

"Seed can't," Culgan says.

Seed glares. "Culgan's an ass. I'm not half-bad."

Culgan sighs in a way that tells Jowy there's a lengthy explanation about why Seed can't dance, and several examples of what happened when he tried.

"I learned some of the popular dances when I was younger," Jowy says, though who knows if those dances are still popular. He hasn't practiced any of them recently, either.

Seed slings an arm around Jowy's shoulder, steers him towards one of the pillars in the shade."Just camp out at the table. That way, if you don't feel like talking, you can stuff your face until they leave you alone."

It's advice easier given than followed, because Jowy can't eat anything an hour before or after he takes the antitoxin, and he's supposed to take it at the same time each day. Which, as it turns out, falls in the middle of the feast. It's impossible to excuse himself discreetly with half the court watching him. The other half, thank the gods, is watching Luca, probably placing bets on how long he'll last before he storms off.

Jowy tries to leave the hall for the third time, and a noblewoman with an enormous mole on her chin tries to coax him into having a sip of the roasted tomato soup. "Hell's sake, let him piss in peace," Luca snaps, slams his wineglass onto the table. The stem shatters. Luca doesn't care, though anyone stupid enough to stand near him flinches back. 

Is it appropriate to say _thank you_ to that? Jowy sighs, keeps his irritation from sharpening his voice as best he can. Most of the guests have to force their smiles hard enough that the paint on their lips cracks. He decides to ask Seed and Culgan how the court has dealt with Luca all these years, though he suspects the answer is that Luca isn't at court much. 

The antitoxin clings to his tongue after he swallows it all down, sour and metallic. He slips the vial back into his jacket, heads into the grand hall again, and keeps politely refusing all the foods and drinks thrust his way.

"Are you feeling well, my lord?" Jillia asks, after he reassures one of the servants for the fourth time that no, he isn't in the mood for wine right now. Even a fifteen-year-old Kanakan vintage. 

"I'm all right," he says, and lowers his voice. "I'm not used to this, that's all."

"There's nothing to get used to," Luca says. "Eat what you want, have someone else eat it first if you think it's poisoned, drink until you're entertained, leave when you've gotten what you want." His breath is thick with wine. Apparently he's grabbed all the drinks Jowy turned down. Damn. He hopes alcohol doesn't affect Luca's temperament much. Luca's never seemed different after a glass of wine or two, but he's had more than that now, and Jowy doesn't want to find out firsthand whether or not that changes things.

Jillia sighs. "He may have difficulty leaving a ball held in his honor, brother."

"Worse luck for him." Luca snatches a wineglass out of a passing servant's hand. "I don't know how anyone with half a brain stands these things. Ha, I just gave myself the answer, didn't I?"

"Please don't speak so loudly."

He stares her down over the rim of the glass. "I'll speak as loudly as I damn well please, dear sister." 

Jowy glances over his shoulder at Agares, but if Agares is listening to any of this, he doesn't show it.

"The old man's fetes get more boring every year," Luca continues, glares at one of the tapestries like he wants to burn a hole through it. "He could hold a damned tournament, at least."

"I believe most of the men who would wish to compete in such an event are in the field now."

"I wish I were." Luca flings the now-drained glass onto a nearby table. It doesn't shatter, somehow. Jillia closes her eyes, presses her lips together, and Jowy wonders if he's supposed to go to her side now. "Well, my younger brother-to-be? What do you think of all this?"

He doubts Luca's going to like anything he says. "I've barely been here an hour, your Highness."

"Heh. You're so diplomatic now. I remember when you screamed at me to shut up. You called me a rotten bastard, too, didn't you?" Luca doesn't seem angry at the memory, though, thank the gods. "Silverberg really did teach you wisdom."

 _No_ , Jowy thinks. _You did._

"Don't get too reticent," Luca says. "I have no use for sniveling little assholes."

"You keep Rowd around, your Highness."

Luca grins. The wine's tinged his teeth red. "So you've still got a smart mouth on you after all. Shall I give you Rowd's head as another wedding present?"

No. No more wedding presents, no matter how much he wants to strike Rowd down, one cut for every boy he killed. "Thank you, your Highness, but that won't be necessary."

"Then we ought to talk about something else," Jillia says.

"Pah. I'm sick of talking." Luca's hand rests on his hip, where the pommel of his sword would be if he were wearing it. "Amuse yourselves with these idiots. I'm off to find Cunningham, wherever the hell he's gotten himself to." And true to his word he leaves, without so much as a backwards glance.

"Will his Majesty be upset?" Jowy asks Jillia.

"My brother likely hopes so." She turns her head to the side, loops the chain of her pendant around her finger. "I should apologize. I feel as though we've barely spoken this evening, and I'm to blame for that, in part."

"It's as much my fault as it is yours," he says. "More, probably." 

"You oughtn't be so quick to shoulder all the responsibility," she says, and he doesn't want to continue this conversation.

The musicians end the slower dance in favor of a faster one, and the dancers on the floor change hands in preparation for a waltz. Time to see how much of this he remembers. "May I have this dance, my lady?" he asks.

"Oh," Jillia says softly, her fingertips brushing her throat. Her lips quiver, but a hint of a smile tugs them up at the corners. "Thank you. That would be lovely."

He offers her his hand, and she rests her fingers in the center of his palm. They cross to the middle of the floor. By now, Jowy's developed a good sense of when people are whispering about him, and as he circles his left hand around her waist, palm to her back, he knows he and Jillia are at the center of most of the hushed conversations in the room.

Jillia settles easily into the steps. She's a better follower than he's ever danced with, turning and whirling with the lightest press of his palm, and seems to have eyes in the back of her head. The swish of her skirt hides his feet when he steps too wide or lands too hard, and his missteps never shake her. They sweep around the floor in the line of dancers, pressed more seamlessly together than Jowy ever was with his instructors in Kyaro. Her hair ripples in time to the music, too, and he almost misses the next steps of the dance when he watches it.

"Is everything all right, my lord?" she murmurs.

"Enough is," he says, and curls his fingers around the back of her hand. The waltz has its own heartbeat, one strong beat and two weak, and it's nothing like the pulse of his Rune.

A pair of dancers spins by beside them and Jowy decides to tighten his grip on Jillia's hand and signal her to turn. She fits under the arc of his arm, graceful and sure-footed, and meets him again with a smile.

He might be able to do this.

They sweep across the floor, weaving through the other dancers. He guides Jillia into their next turn—

—and stops.

Marcel Atreides is standing by the wall, more stiff-backed than usual, a hard line between his eyes. Jillia's hand slips from Jowy's grasp. He doesn't bother to grab it again. 

"My lord?" she asks. He shakes his head, silent, and Marcel's eyes narrow. They've seen each other. There's no way to avoid this. He slides his hand from Jillia's waist and walks, not in time with the waltz anymore.

"Jowy," Marcel says. Well, Jowy shouldn't have expected _Lord Atreides._

"Hello," he says, sidestepping the problem of what to call Marcel. For now, at least.

"Congratulations seem to be in order."

And those aren't actual congratulations, so Jowy doesn't bother to say _thank you_. "So it would seem." The strains of the last waltz fade, and the musicians strike up a new song: faster, almost trilling. "Is Mother with you?"

Marcel has the decency to look down. "She hasn't been well."

Jowy nods. He never did get to say good-bye to her. Marcel said she couldn't stand the sight of him, when he asked—when he _pleaded_ , crying the way he'd always heard boys weren't supposed to. Could she stand the sight of him now? Numbness tingles in his fingers, spreads up his arms. He hopes it doesn't reach his tongue. "And Marco?"

It's almost as though shutters slide down behind Marcel's eyes. "I thought it best to leave him at home."

 _You've brought him along before_ , Jowy thinks. _What's changed?_

They stare at each other, and neither of them speaks. If only Jowy could do what Luca did and saunter out of the hall without hesitations or apologies—but then he'd be the one to look away first. Finally Marcel flinches, glances to the side. Good. Let him.

"Why did you come here?" Jowy asks.

"I was invited," Marcel says. "I presumed it was at your behest."

Jowy doesn't need to speak. His silence is enough of an answer. Who _did_ invite Marcel, though? Everyone, from the king down, must have known about Jowy's disinheritance. Maybe this is Agares's way of getting back at Luca. Well, he won't have to worry about the king much longer—

There's no poison in his blood yet, but there might as well be, the way his stomach knots, the way his spine locks like the bones have been fused together.

"What made you turn traitor again?" Marcel finally asks.

Jowy's fists tremble. He hides them behind his back. Marcel doesn't seem to notice. He's lived with Jowy—permitted Jowy in his house—for most of Jowy's life and he can't detect what Luca can pick up in a heartbeat. "I told you the truth," he says. "I wasn't a traitor. Not when you cast me out."

Marcel sucks in a sharp breath.

"My liege lord has proof of my loyalty, and he's accepted it."

Marcel still hasn't moved. The edges of his lips are white, and his mouth tightens even more when Jowy mentions his liege lord. "And whose service are you sworn to?"

Jowy stares at him, and Marcel coughs. "I see," he says, barely louder than a mutter. Can Luca shut Marcel up, too?

"What do you see?"

Marcel doesn't answer, not in words. It's in the flash of fear in his eyes, the way he edges back. He makes no sudden movements. _Genkaku and the mad dog_ , Jowy remembers.

If he'd had any appetite to begin with, he wouldn't now.

"My lord?" Jillia crosses to his side. "Is anything amiss?"

 _Everything._ "No," he says. "Lord Atreides and I were speaking, that's all."

Jillia smiles at Marcel; Marcel nods back. "Thank you for attending, Lord Atreides," she says. "The journey from Kyaro to L'Renouille must not be an easy one in the present circumstances."

"It could have been worse, your Highness," Marcel says, glances furtively to the side like he expects Jowy's troops to march through the doors and drag him off. _For the love of the gods, what do you think I am?_ Jowy wants to snap. He decides he doesn't want to know the answer.

"How long will you remain with us?" Jillia asks.

"Not long, I'm afraid. I have business to attend to in Kyaro, and I don't wish to leave my wife and son for long—in present circumstances, your Highness, as you said."

 _Present circumstances._ He means Jowy. Of course he means Jowy. Does he think he has to defend Rosa from her own son?

Yes. He does.

Jowy's not going to eat anything else tonight, and the musicians have moved from waltzes into styles he doesn't know. He shouldn't stay. 

"My lord?"

"I'm not feeling well, my lady," he says. It's true enough. "I should rest before the ceremony tomorrow." He won't, but it's as good an excuse as any. Anything to get him out of this conversation, out of this room. Anything to go where fewer people are watching him, if anywhere like that exists here.

Jillia inclines her head, dips into a curtsey. "As my lord wishes." She can't be pleased, but she doesn't indicate that anything's wrong, either. He'll take it, for now.

"Jowy," Marcel says, once Jowy's already turned to leave.

"I have my own apology to make," he says, and doesn't look back. "I've let people call me a son of House Atreides. I shouldn't have."

Marcel doesn't speak. Jowy wonders how he looks—the man who gave him a house but never a home, a name but never a family. And now all he's giving Jowy is silence, and Jowy can't even pretend to be grateful for it.

"Keep your name," he says. "I have a new one."

If Marcel has anything to say to that, Jowy doesn't hear. He climbs the stairs to his room, locks the door, stares at the back of his hand until the Lightning Rune on the wall dims.

 _Bad blood will out_ , Luca said. It seems like so much longer ago than it was.

***

Jowy slides the needle into his wrist, right at the vein. His Rune hisses underneath his skin, and soon the poison will too. _Don't flinch_ , he reminds himself. If the needle slips—it's hard not to shudder at that thought, but he can't. The antitoxin will hold back the poison, but if he slits his wrist open there's nothing to stop him from bleeding to death.

A minute passes, then another, and finally he yanks the needle out. He almost flings it across the room, but no, he can't leave evidence behind. The Fire Rune on his left hand glows, and a tongue of flame scours the needle clean. He doubts the Rune could do the same for him.

From what he's read about this poison, he should be coughing up blood now, feeling blisters well up and rupture in his throat. Well, no, he shouldn't be if the antitoxin's working, but it's strange to feel nothing more than an itch under his skin. Agares will feel more than that. _Not for long_ , he has to remind himself. _Not for long._ Like it makes what he's doing any better. Gods, his blood's toxic enough without the poison flowing through it.

His head hurts. Maybe that's the poison. Jowy stares up at the ceiling, watches the beams of light fade and shrink across it. It's almost time for the ceremony now.

Greenhill was a way of proving himself. So is Agares. He lets that thought carry him down the stairs, through the echoing halls and to the doors of the king's chambers. Agares's guards search him as thoroughly as Luca said they would. The poison must be slowing Jowy's heart, because he doesn't flinch or sweat through any of it. It's like he's moving strings attached to his body instead of his actual body, and even the burn of his Rune is distant.

Agares asks Jillia if she's certain she wants this. Jowy knows Jillia says yes, because she's said as much to him, but can't quite hear it. She leaves, and Agares summons Jowy before him.

"I hereby recognize you, Jowy Atreides, as a knight in service of the Kingdom of Highland," he says.

 _I'm not an Atreides,_ he wants to say. _I don't know what I am._ But the poison's thickened his tongue, too.

"I, Jowy Atreides, swear eternal fealty to King Agares Blight of Highland, and seal this oath with my blood."

He swears he hears the poison hiss through his veins.

Luca sips the Wine of Fealty, savors it. His eyes are closed, and that's for the best because Jowy doesn't want to know what Luca is seeing right now. He walks to Jowy, holds out the cup wordlessly, and Jowy looks at his own distorted reflection on the cup's surface when he opens his wrist again. His reflection wavers, stretches across the gold and turns his eyes into dark streaks.

"Take my blood as proof of my loyalty," he says. He almost expects Luca to fall to the ground laughing, but Luca only smirks. Jowy still can't bring himself to look at Luca's eyes. Or Agares's, for that matter, when Agares takes the cup from Jowy's hand. Agares's fingers tremble around the cup's stem. Does he know? Does he suspect, at least? Something gnaws at his throat. Maybe it's the poison, surfacing at last.

"Sir Jowy Atreides, just as your blood is added to my own, so too are you added to the lifeblood of the Highland Army." He sips.

It's done. Jowy waits.

"Now, as a loyal knight in service to the Kingdom of Highland, I ask you to—"

Agares stops, his eyes widening. "To—" he chokes out one last time, and staggers forward, retches. Blood drips down his chin and robes, splashes to the carpet and spreads like the cloud that gathered over Muse. Jowy fights down a cough of his own, though blood isn't what's surging in his throat now. The attendant rushes from the room, and Luca—

Luca laughs often enough. He laughs out of amusement, spite, approval, bloodlust. Jowy's never heard him laugh out of all of them at once. Those, and something even darker, even sharper, like there's broken glass under the sound.

"How—" Agares gasps, barely holding his head off the floor. Luca's laughter fades, but the sound still rings in Jowy's ears again and again. The room lurches and Jowy clutches his stomach, forces himself to stay standing. His knees shake. Agares is speaking again and Jowy tries to listen but the sound flickers in and out and Luca's laughter is burning through him even hotter than the poison. 

"How dare you call yourself father?" Luca roars, and kicks Agares in the ribs hard enough that Jowy hears bone crack. "You couldn't protect your own wife! You're a coward who made peace with a nation of dogs! And when my mother and I were so callously dishonored, you did nothing! You trembled on your throne and waited for the imperial guards to save us!"

What?

Jowy knows he wasn't meant to overhear any of this, whatever he's hearing. Queen Sara—what happened to her? He can't remember. The room slips in and out of focus, fades and comes back. _The world must be cleansed_ , Luca says. Jowy thinks so, at least. Cleansed of what?

Luca turns to him. His smile hurts to look at. "Well done, Jowy Atreides." 

His name. Not _you_ , not _boy_. He must have proven himself after all.

His knees hit the ground, and the room fades to black one last time and doesn't flicker back.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It takes more than one man to start a war, and the death of one man won't finish it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional warning in this chapter for mentions of rape, as per Luca's backstory.

The cape settles heavily on Jowy's shoulders, more heavily than he expected it to. He hasn't married Jillia yet but he's still wearing the royal colors for this, standing at her side. She doesn't watch her brother—his brother too, now—progress down the great hall. His cape stretches behind him, weighted down with fur and gems and thick silver thread, but he doesn't seem to notice its heaviness. He's in his best plate for this. Everyone in the hall knows what that means about the kind of king they're getting. Not all of them mind.

Jillia might be permitted to look away, but Jowy isn't. He made this happen, after all.

The organ sounds its final note for now, and Luca kneels in the center of the carpet. He must hate doing that. No one else in the hall moves. How could they? 

A page stands next to Luca with a torch, and Jowy cringes. It's part of the ceremony, Jillia told him, but he can't be the only one watching the flame with unease as it flickers. He isn't; Culgan's mouth is hard and flat, and the muscle on the side of Seed's jaw twitches. Leon looks the same as he always does, though. He hasn't even removed his coat and scarf for the occasion, and no one seems inclined to ask him to. Leon meets Jowy's eyes, and he nods so slightly that Jowy almost misses it. _Everything's proceeding according to plan_. He'll make for Radat tomorrow with Luca's orders in hand, and if Kiba hasn't yet heard about Agares's death, he will then. A man like Kiba would never serve Luca willingly; if he doesn't die, he'll defect. Either way suits Jowy's purposes. This part of the plan sounds so simple, when he thinks about it like that.

"As one flame is extinguished, another is lit," the official from Harmonia says. "So it is, and so it ever shall be. In the name of His Holiness Hikusaak, bearer of the Circle Rune, we confer guardianship of this realm upon Luca Blight and appoint him King of Highland."

"By my body and by my soul," Luca says, "as the successor of the Blight family lineage, I pledge to serve this land until I burn my last."

A shiver runs down the hall. Jillia grips the edge of her cloak tighter, and Jowy wonders if he should reach for her hand.

The official sets the crown of Highland on Luca's brow. It's not a grand crown. It's a cold hard band, more steel than gold, and it shouldn't sit as easily on Luca as it does.

"Then rise, King of Highland, and bring us the first light of your reign."

Luca snatches the torch out of the page's hand and throws it into the brazier. Flames shoot from it, twisting higher and higher, and every time Jowy expects them to fall, they don't. "For Highland and Harmonia!" he says, and the laughter lurking in the back of his voice this entire time swells to the forefront. Why should he bother to hide it now?

The fire hisses its approval, and whether or not the crowd gives theirs doesn't matter much. Jowy barely hears the organ start up again over the crackle of the flames, the echoes of Luca's laughter. 

"It's done, then," Jillia says after Luca passes them on his way down the great hall.

 _Only the first part,_ Jowy doesn't say.

***

There's no coronation feast, no celebration. Someone might be preparing a banquet or hosting a ball in Luca's honor, but if they are, Luca's not in attendance. "It's one of the best parts about all this," he says, and swings his feet onto what used to be his father's table, doesn't bother to remove his boots first. "No damned fetes if I don't feel like hosting them."

 _Your subjects expect to see you there_ , anyone foolish enough to try to advise Luca on protocol might say, but his subjects probably don't. "You wish to be alone, your Majesty?" Jowy asks. _Say yes_ , he prays. _Just say yes._

"I don't want to spend the night dancing and pretending to listen to empty-headed sheep, if that's what you mean." Luca beckons Jowy closer. "Sit down. You're my brother now, aren't you? You might as well."

Luca's brother. The certainty sinks deeper into his stomach. Marrying Jillia really is just a ceremony at this point, going through the right motions so the right people publicly see. But the right people already saw him take his place with the Blights today, wear their colors. _You're a Blight now_ , he tells himself. It doesn't feel real, but enough of the poison still burns in him that it can't not be.

"Yes, your Majesty," he says, and sits across from Luca. Luca doesn't ask Jowy to serve him this time. He grabs the bottle by the neck and takes a swig straight from it, and whatever's in there smells too strong to be wine. 

"Heh," Luca says after a solid half a minute of drinking. He hasn't wiped his mouth. "I never thought I'd have a younger brother. What are you supposed to do with younger brothers?"

 _Treat him with respect and don't antagonize him_ , Marcel told Jowy time and time again. _Spoil him rotten_ , it meant. Granted, Nanami never—he stops himself. "I'm not the best person to ask, your Majesty."

"Hmph." Luca curls his moth like he's going to spit.

"I don't imagine it's much different from what you'd do with a younger sister," Jowy says, though gods know whether that's true for Luca or not.

Somehow, Luca laughs while he drinks without choking. How long has he been at this? "A younger sister," he repeats. "Ha. I never expected to have a younger sister, either. That old son of a bitch acted like I didn't. He didn't summon her to court until she was ten." He scowls, flicks the near-empty bottle with the toe of his boot, and Jowy doesn't move to catch it when it topples. He can't.

"I hope maggots breed on every inch of his corpse," Luca adds, grabs the bottle off the ground and gives it a baleful stare. "Don't tell me this damned thing's already run dry."

"Shall I get more, your Majesty?"

"Yes, for hell's sake, don't sit there like an idiot." He snarls, flings the bottle at Jowy's head—no, at the wall behind him, where it shatters. Red drips down the stones, pools at the bottom. It's too thin to look like blood. He hates himself for knowing that, a little. No use dwelling on it; he heads to the serving tray, and his hand hesitates over the nearest bottle.

Some of the poison might still be in his blood. He could nick his finger, squeeze a few drops into Luca's glass, and end his reign now. He could.

"Well? Hurry up."

He clears his throat, keeps his back to Luca. "I saw her Highness in Kyaro sometimes, when I was growing up. But she wasn't always there, so I assumed she returned to the palace…"

"Who knows where the old man had her sent? Some other backwater, no doubt. No one thought it was worth telling me."

Jowy uncorks the bottle, begins to pour a fresh glass. His hand's hidden from Luca, now. If he's quick about it, if he doesn't falter, Luca won't notice a thing.

"Even that young, she looked like Mother," Luca says, and Jowy halts. "No wonder the old man couldn't stand the sight of her. Oh, he _knew_ he was a coward, but what coward doesn't hide from his own cowardice?" His laugh dies almost before it starts.

_Now. Do it now._

"Damn it, are you deaf? I told you to get me a drink!"

"Yes, your Majesty," Jowy says, and brings the glass and bottle back to the table. _When he finishes this one_ , he tells himself. _I'll do it then. He really will be too blind drunk to notice._

"This stinking country is filled with cowards." Again, Luca ignores the glass, goes straight for the bottle. "They bleat about peace, friendship, understanding. Ha. It's all shit, and it never lasts. Drink," he says, gestures to the glass.

Jowy does, gods help him, and it's all he can do not to choke and sputter.

"Cowards are useless to me. I should kill them all. I _will_ kill them all."

He says it like it's simple fact. Alcohol's supposed to warm you but Jowy freezes down to his toes, too much to shiver.

"Don't look surprised, Jowy," Luca says, and Jowy curses himself silently. "Men who try to appease pigs are no better than pigs themselves. Why should they be spared? They'd only offer the State more treaties, and the State would shit all over them, and we'd be back here again."

"But the State didn't break the last treaty—"

" _Who gives a damn about the last treaty?_ " Luca roars. He backhands Jowy across the face, sends the glass flying from his hand. His strength's as inhuman as it's always been. More inhuman, maybe. Jowy cups his cheek; it's already tender, swelling, stinging.

The glass shards glisten in the lamplight. He could slip one into his hand, pour Luca more to drink until he passes out, slit his throat. Just like butchering a pig. It would be fitting, wouldn't it?

"They broke their treaty when that cunt's father poisoned Genkaku's sword. They broke their treaty when he set his dogs on my mother and me! They violated her for _days_ before we were saved, and I watched every godsdamned second of it! And then I killed them all, because my father and his flock of sheep didn't have the balls to avenge her!"

Jowy wishes to the gods that more of the poison were left in his veins, because that creeping sickness would be better than the one twisting through him now. Did Anabelle—no. No. Anabelle couldn't have known about this. None of them could have. Queen Sara died when he could barely walk, he never thought to ask—

Luca grabs Jowy by the chin, wrenches his head forward. Luca's neck is a handsbreadth from his own. If he reached to his left—

Every line in Luca's face is etched in fury, and spit drips from his teeth like venom. Jowy doesn't look away, doesn't move, doesn't breathe, doesn't think.

"Peace can go to hell," Luca growls. "It always does."

He lets Jowy go, and for once Jowy stays where he is and doesn't stagger back. Luca sweeps the shards of glass off the table. His palm is bleeding. He doesn't seem to care.

"Get another glass," he says. "Drink with me."

Jowy swallows. "Yes, your Majesty," he says, and leaves the room to fetch one, partially to prove that his legs haven't died under him.

He knows he'll come back. Without a knife. Without any poison.

***

The morning light drills into Jowy's eyes, and rubbing them doesn't make the brightness sting any less. The castle's blacksmiths must have decided to use his skull as an anvil sometime last night, and his head's still ringing from it. He groans.

He'd ask what the hell convinced him to spend the night drinking with Luca Blight, but he knows the answer. Wincing, he digs his thumb into the bridge of his nose to ease some of the pressure inside his head. It works, for a little while. But when the pain lessens Luca's words drum in Jowy's skull instead, and rubbing his head doesn't make those go away.

Kill Luca, end the war. It was supposed to be—not simple, killing Luca's going to be anything but that, but straightforward. Luca's lies started this war, didn't they? If Highland hadn't been tricked into seeking vengeance, they'd all have welcomed peace. His throat draws tight, as tight as the knots around his temples. He can't be wrong about that. Gods, don't let him be wrong about that.

"My lord?"

Jillia speaks softly, like usual. Her voice still scrapes against Jowy's ears. "Hello," he says, tries not to cringe at the sound of his own voice.

"Forgive me if I presume," she says, "but you seem unwell."

"I had too much to drink," he says, leaves off the rest. She clasps her hands in front of her skirt, casts her eyes down, and he remembers a portrait in the south tower of the palace. Jillia's posed almost exactly like the woman in it was. He assumed it _was_ Jillia when he first saw it, but what if it's Queen Sara's folded hands, Queen Sara's demure glance? If he's right, then they do look almost exactly alike. Better that than looking like her father, whoever he is. His stomach twists.

"I had heard," she says. "Keeping pace with my brother is no easy task. The castle physician has a draught excellent for remedying these kinds of headaches. I took the liberty of fetching some for you." She draws a slender blue vial from her sleeve, presses it into his hand.

"Thank you," he says, and his temples throb in agreement. He drains the vial in a single swallow; pain flares bright behind his eyes, then fades, like someone's washed his brow in cool water.

"Is that better, my lord?"

"It is." He hesitates. "I grew up in Kyaro, you know."

"Yes, I heard as much."

"I heard rumors about you while I was there," he goes on. "I didn't believe them at first. Kyaro seemed so distant from everything, somewhere the world outside it didn't touch."

"Unchanging, save for the passing of season," Jillia murmurs. "Yes. I remember."

"But you really were there." And Queen Sara was sent there to die, and the great hero of the City-States thirty years prior lived quietly in a dojo with his adopted grandchildren.

At the edge of the village, there was a house, or the remains of one. Fire ate one wall, rot ate the other, and every child in Kyaro was forbidden to play in it. _It's not safe_ , Marcel said when Jowy asked, and left it at that. The children were more descriptive: one night, the people living there invited a demon inside by mistake, and the minute he crossed the threshold he butchered them all. Now their ghosts keep guard over the ruins and force everyone else out, so they never repeat their mistake. Jowy overheard Marcel telling Rosa that the house was a notorious bandit nest, and someone cleared it out one night, and no one's dared to go back since. 

Are there places like that in Toto and Ryube—old wounds and scars, left far before Luca Blight razed them to the ground?

"Forgive me, my lord, if I'm interrupting—"

"You're not," he says. "I'm sorry. I was going to say it was strange that we never met."

"From a certain perspective, I suppose."

"But it _isn't_ strange, is it? My world wasn't yours back then. That's what I believed. Maybe—maybe I just didn't know how to look." He looks down. "Maybe I didn't know anything at all."

When he looks up, Jillia's hand is hovering over his shoulder, her fingertips not quite brushing his sleeve. "You were a child," she says, quietly. "And though I don't wish to assume, it does seem as though you're placing yourself at fault for failing to know what you could not possibly have seen, or understood."

He says nothing.

"My world was no larger than yours, in those days," she continues. "It may even have been smaller. The walls were its bounds, and though I studied what lay beyond them, I saw none of it, touched none of it. When I was first summoned to court, I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of it. And there were so many people, too, praising me for things I could not possibly have possessed. I knew, of course, that the king was—" She pauses. "That the king had claimed me as his daughter, but it was a long time before I understood the rest."

"The rest?"

She inclines her head, and her hand falls to her side. It's trembling, so he reaches out to her, folds his fingers around hers. How often do people do that for her? 

"Before I understood why his Majesty could barely stand to look at me. Before I understood why my brother—" She pauses again, her fingers curling under his.

It's almost cruel to ask. He does anyway. "What was he like, back then?"

She's silent, still, her expression even more carefully impenetrable than his is at its best. "I wouldn't call his madness hidden, precisely," she says, sifts through each word. "Have you ever tried to prise out the bruised part of a fruit, and found that rot had blackened it to its core?"

Jowy nods, tightens his grip on her hand.

"My brother was like that, I think. He was far from kind, certainly, and contemptuous, but neither disposition was out of place at court. Sometimes rumors reached me—but I attributed them to soldierly exaggeration, or excused them as the cost of war. Many people did." For a moment, Jillia's throat works soundlessly. "I doubt my brother never set out to trick or mislead us; we did that on our own. I suppose it isn't so surprising, when you think about it."

"Why not?" he asks, though he knows the answer. 

"It seemed too incredible. For that kind of darkness to have taken root in him for so long, and for none of us to have noticed—we all wanted to believe ourselves wiser than that. I know I did."

The Rune pulses hard on the back of his hand, and its power spiders up Jowy's arms, sharp and prickling. Jillia winces, and he lets go of her hand, rubs his own. He doesn't need to say anything. What the Rune said was enough.

"I learned what happened to the Unicorn Brigade because my brother told me."

Jowy's head jerks up.

"He returned from Tenzan Pass, and boasted of how his sword's thirst had been eased, and laughed. When I first met him, I could have perhaps imagined him capable of such slaughter, but I never imagined he would laugh about it." 

She presses her hands into her lap, holds her back perfectly straight. If she doesn't, he thinks, she'll collapse, and she'll need to take the rest of the morning to build herself back up again. He knows the feeling. He should comfort her. Jowy stretches out his arm but can't bring himself to drape it over her shoulders. What kind of reassurance can he offer right now, really? None, and she must know it too.

"Does that answer your question, my lord?"

"Yes." He glances to the side. "I'm sorry."

"You needn't be, but it's kind of you to express concern."

"I'm not kind," he says.

"My lord, you do yourself a disservice."

"Do I?" he asks, and leaves her side, pulls the curtains apart and starts to tie them back. Light pours into the room. It doesn't burn his eyes anymore. It doesn't warm him at all. "What if I've only been pretending?"

"When we spoke in that tent, I saw—"

"I didn't know what I was saying." He winds the sash around his palm, tighter and tighter, and at least the Rune doesn't protest that his blood's backed up. "I didn't know what I was doing."

"But you did mean it," she says, and there's more steel showing in her voice than he's heard there before. He turns; she forces her chin up so her eyes are on level with his. His fist clenches around the sash.

"I meant it," he says. 

"As did I, when I said you are not a cruel man."

 _That was before I killed your father,_ he doesn't say. "Cruel men win wars, don't they?"

"If I recall correctly, my lord, you told me you wished to end this war, not to win it."

The sash snags on something mid-twist, and he drops the end of it. His fingers tingle with blood, and with the power underneath. She's right, isn't she? She's right about a lot of things, or at least not wrong about them. But that's as dangerous as it is admirable.

"Ending a war is—more complicated," he says.

Jillia inclines her head. "I imagine it is."

***

If drinking with Luca Blight is a bad idea, sparring with him is a worse one. But Jowy's buckling on his vambraces and greaves and breastplate anyway.

"Could be worse," Seed says as he helps Jowy with the buckles on the left. "You could be going after each other with live steel. Unless His Majesty's swapped out his tourney sword for a real one already," he adds. Jowy grits his teeth, forces his chest to unknot. 

Culgan gives his _shut up, Seed_ glower. "Remember not to use your sword to block his overhand strikes. You've broken most of your other staff habits well enough, but that one is still there. Turn his blade, or dodge it."

Jowy repeats it inside his head like the beginning of a spell chant. Not for long enough, though; Luca's voice echoes from across the practice yard. "Hurry up! I mean to ride out today, and we won't make it past the city gates if the rest of the army takes this long to fasten a few buckles!"

"Good luck," says Culgan.

"You'll need it," says Seed, as Jowy suspected he would, and thumps him on the back, nudges him onto the bare ground. The dirt crunches under his feet, and each step seems as loud as cannonfire. Soldiers and nobles alike gather around the edges of the yard, murmuring in a low drone. Of course they're all here. It occurs to him that this wouldn't be a bad setup for a tragic accident—or a public execution. He shoves that thought aside. It won't help him fight.

Luca stands in the center, his palm on the pommel of his sword, and draws it to salute Jowy as he approaches. Is that sweep of his blade a salute or a threat? Both, maybe.

"Let's see how much you've learned, younger brother," Luca says, and that's all the time Jowy gets.

By now he should be used to how fast Luca is. He's seen him cut down half a dozen men in the time it takes most soldiers to draw their swords. But his first strike drives into Jowy's gut, and his breath explodes out of him. Luca's blade arcs down and Jowy twists away from it, brings his sword up to pry around for an opening. 

There isn't one. Luca batters him back, slices at him across and down and in directions that don't seem possible. Jowy's heel skids on a patch of loose earth and his knee almost gives way—it's a blessing, because otherwise Luca's next cut would have taken his head off, practice sword or no. No time for relief at that. Smiling, each tooth gleaming, Luca reverses direction and swings his blade down in a crescent, whacks Jowy's side. So his sword _is_ blunted, Good. But not good enough, because a low ache pulses up from his side and throbs down his arm. Damn.

"Is that all?" Luca scoffs, punctuates the question with a thrust Jowy barely avoids. "I thought you could put up more of a fight than this!"

Jowy doesn't answer. He can't spare the breath. When Luca strikes next Jowy springs in instead of away, crouched, his sword in the hanging guard made him spend hours practicing. He shifts his grip at the last second, slams his palm into the pommel of his sword for the force he needs. Luca pivots, and instead of the point skewering him, the edge of Jowy's blade scores across his chestplate.

_I hit him_ , Jowy thinks, almost in a daze, before the hilt of Luca's sword smashes into the small of Jowy's back. He drops his sword, smacks the dirt palms first. Luca's sword whistles past his ear and he rolls to the side the way Genkaku taught him: right leg spiraling over left. Once his right knee's planted under him he pushes himself up, lunges for his sword before Luca hits his shoulder He's barely up in time to slide his blade next to Luca's and turn the point away, but he manages.

That means that his hilt locks with Luca's, though, and before he can break the bind Luca slams down, rams the hilt of his sword into the muscle Jowy's pauldron doesn't cover.

Oh gods. Numbness stings down his arm and his fingers open—no. He can't drop his sword again. The edge of Luca's blade rests alongside Jowy's throat and dulled or not, Jowy's blood swells to the surface underneath.

"Better than before," Luca says, "but you'd still be bleeding out if this were a real fight. Be thankful I'm going to whet my appetite soon, or you would be."

Jowy breathes, and it's as loud as it would be if he spoke.

"Well? Come at me again, unless you've given up already."

He's not going to win. But it isn't time to quit, either. Jowy disengages and shifts back into plow stance, circles to steady his footing but keeps the tip of his blade pointed at Luca's throat. 

"Heh," Luca says, and he's on Jowy again.

Winning isn't defeating him. Winning is surviving this. This close, Luca's size and strength overpower all of Jowy's strikes. He needs to break free. Luca brings his arms up for an overhand blow that could cleave a tree, and Jowy rams the hilt of his sword into Luca's armpit. Gods above, that actually staggers him for a second. Jowy untwists his arms, brings his blade level with his eyes, strikes across. The angle's not quite right—his wrist jars when the sword's edge collides with Luca's armor, but it's something. 

"So I haven't beaten the fight out of you, is that right?"

He lets the next sweep of his sword, cutting down towards Luca's knee, answer that—and Luca catches Jowy's blade before it hits. How did he—it's the wrong time to ask. _Don't stop_ , he reminds himself, but too late. In the space of that hesitation, Luca wrenches Jowy's sword out of his hands. It skitters across the dirt and Jowy lunges for it, but before his fingers close around the hilt, Luca's at his side. Luca grips his sword by the blade instead of the hilt, and the hilt cracks into Jowy's shoulder hard enough to bruise bone. 

The field gives a sickening lurch as pain slams into him like a wave. Staying on his feet isn't even an option, because Luca hooks the crossguard of his sword behind Jowy's neck and wrenches him to the ground. His breath deserts him again.

 _It's nothing a Water Rune can't fix_ , he tells himself. The thought doesn't help much.

Luca looms over him, the point of his sword resting above Jowy's heart. "Ha, you really have improved," he says. "I might need more than one stroke to kill you. Do you think Genkaku's whelp will last as long?"

Jowy can't flinch, no matter how hard his shoulder throbs. "You'll find out, your Majesty," he says, drags himself to his feet. Riou—no. Now isn't the time to think about him.

"And soon." Luca's mouth curls. "Crushing those miserable little maggots will make my sword sing."

There isn't much Jowy can say to that, or that Luca expects him to say. He bows instead, and manages not to topple over. "Your Majesty."

"Did you hear that, men?" Luca shouts, thrusts his sword into the air. "We march on those curs from the State, and Dunan Lake will overflow its banks with their blood!"

Jowy knows exactly how loudly they'll cheer, and for how long. He presses his lips together and walks, more haltingly than he'd like, to the side of the field. Seed's waiting for him, Flowing Rune at the ready. Let him grumble all he wants about how this spell's meant to heal groups of soldiers, not dumbasses who decide to kick off a campaign by fighting Luca Blight. The spell sinks in and cools the fire in Jowy's shoulder, and that's all he can ask for right now.

"—and you're lucky nothing broke, because riding with a broken anything hurts worse than scraping your ass with a cactus," Seed finishes, and the glow around his hand fades.

"Evocative," Culgan says, dry as the Southern Desert.

"I've heard worse." Jowy rolls his shoulder back slowly. It twinges, but it doesn't scream at him. "And I've had worse, I think."

Seed grimaces. "You'll probably _get_ worse if you face off against him again."

"I won't," Jowy says. "Not like that."

***

Jowy's engagement to Jillia entitles him to space in the royal tent, if he so chooses. He doesn't. It's not like Luca's going to press the issue. 

The reinforcements from Harmonia are arriving tomorrow, thousands of them. Leon told him that they're commanded by Bishop Sasarai, but the name means less to Jowy than it should. He'll speak with Leon about it tomorrow. Better to rest tonight. If he can.

Moonlight filters under the tent, soft and silver. It reaches his face, and he turns his head away so his eyes fall into darkness again, but he's not any less awake. His body never listens to him about this. Sighing, Jowy tucks the blanket over his head, muffles out the rest of the world.

When he was younger, he used to read himself to sleep whenever he could get away with it. That won't work now. He has nothing to read but reports. Some men fall asleep reading those, but Jowy isn't one of them. Does Luca do anything to force himself to fall asleep? Come to think of it, Jowy isn't sure he's ever seen Luca sleep. But he must, sometimes. And he certainly dreams. Jowy can picture them: fire and blood and the world ripped apart by twin sets of jaws, and the faces of his enemies burnt and slashed beyond recognition. He must dream about killing Jowy, too. Fine. So be it.

The air chimes, the light in his tent brightens and swells, and it's familiar in a way Jowy can't place. He sits up. A shape comes into focus in front of him: a woman with robes as white as her hair is dark. Her eyes are closed, but she looks straight at him anyway.

"Lady Leknaat," he says.

"Jowy Atreides." A faint flicker of light crosses her face, as if she could blink even though they're already closed. "Forgive me: Prince Jowy Blight of Highland. Your journey has already lain claim to one name and bound you to another."

He stares at the ground, notices that her feet don't touch it. _I'm not Prince of Highland yet_ , he could say, but it's only a token protest. Come to think of it, he might never get the chance to be Prince of Highland, officially. The thought twists deep inside him, takes root at the base of his spine and makes it stiffen.

"But the path is still yours, as much your own paving as that of the stars. Your tread has shaped it, your eyes have marked its turns, but as I, you see not its end. You are intent upon the hope and the horizon, and the brambles nearest your feet—but you are not the only walker on this path."

He takes a moment to digest that. "Riou," he says. "That's who you mean, isn't it?"

"No. Just as the paths in the shrine, yours shall cross, but his is his and yours is yours. No, I speak of those who have tread it, and tread it still in shadows, and those who lurk in yours as you lurk in theirs."

"I don't understand."

"The understanding is in you, in fragments. Perhaps only if you take your eyes from one horizon to another will you see its shape."

"What other horizon?" he asks, rubs the back of his right hand. The Rune's pulse picks up; something's whispering in his blood, but he can't say what it is.

"Not the one you seek," she says, wind rustling her robes and hair. "The one you leave."

Oh. The hairs on the back of his neck stir. There's nothing behind him, there can't be, but he glances all the same.

"Before you, there is a darkness that obfuscates the means of your destiny. Behind you, the creature that casts that shadow. And if that shadow encompasses your path, you walk in it even now, seeking a horizon that casts no light to guide you. Remove that which blocks the sun, and your fate will be in sight."

"I will," he says. "He won't return from this campaign. I've made sure of it."

He almost expects soldiers to come rushing in at those words, or for a thunderclap to echo across the sky. _Luca Blight will die._ He hasn't let himself speak that before now. And now that he has—well, the path Leknaat talked about must have solidified.

"But there is still another source, and with it, another shadow, the one that chills your shoulders and haunts your steps, and you cannot face it without turning from the path set out before you."

"The war itself. I know."

Leknaat lowers her head into the wind, and says nothing.

The wind's making his skin prickle. He hopes it's the wind. "That's what you meant, isn't it?"

"There is more to war than a beginning and an end," she says.

"I _know_ ," he says, grits his teeth so he won't shout. "I have to stop it from beginning again, don't I?"

Leknaat begins to fade, or the wind begins to thicken. "What you must do is known only to you. What you _will_ do is destiny's province.

"What do you mean?" he asks, but by the time he's finished speaking, she's gone. The flap of the tent flutters in the breeze she left behind, and when it falls still, there's no sign she was ever here at all.

What he _will_ do, she said. Jowy shakes his head. There's only one path before him now. He just has to keep walking it, that's all.

 

\---  
\--


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The death of Luca Blight, and the beginning of what comes after.

"The Unicorn Army has accepted Windamier's surrender. They let him keep his head."

Jowy glances around to make sure none of the soldiers loyal to Luca are nearby. They aren't; most of them are preparing the camp for the arrival of the Harmonian troops. They've spent all morning pitching tents, clearing out last night's fire-pits, digging new latrines. The blacksmiths' hammers clang not far from Leon's tent, and apparently someone set the smiths too close to the stables, because the horses whinny in protest. Someone else—Seed, he thinks—comes over to shout at them for spooking the horses. It's definitely Seed. Jowy doesn't know anyone else who'd come up with that use for a pair of tongs. 

"That's what we wanted, isn't it?" he says, and has to raise his voice more than he'd like to. "Is there a better place for us to talk?"

"We should prepare for the Harmonians' arrival," Leon says, already on his way away from the more central tents, as if he's going to the edge of camp to wait for the reinforcements. Jowy follows. Leon goes on, not quite under his breath but low enough that only Jowy can hear, "Yes. It's what we wanted. There's no better person to confirm that the Unicorn Army is the bait, not the animal we're luring into the trap."

"Luca will take the bait," Jowy says. "He'll be furious when he finds out." _Furious_ isn't nearly strong enough, but Jowy's not sure any word is. "He'll want to make straight for Northwind, no matter what you tell him."

Leon nods, briefly touches the post that marks the north entrance to the camp, as if he thinks he might need the support. He peers up the path, then leans back, satisfied that he's seen something. "You know the war won't end, whether we succeed or not."

Jowy nods, and his head doesn't quite come back up. "I've known that for some time."

"Then I assume you've planned for that eventuality."

"Yes," he says. His voice is flat, distant, and if he couldn't feel his throat and tongue moving he wouldn't think it was his at all. "I don't plan on giving Jowston or Highland any more excuses to go to war with each other."

"That's what you don't plan. What _do_ you plan?"

"I'm going to forge them into one country," he says. "It's obvious when you think about it, isn't it?"

Leon doesn't answer either way.

"The State, or whatever's left of it, will use Luca's death to push for peace," he continues. He's rehearsed the words in his head countless times on the road, in time to the clop of his horse's hooves. "We'll extend the offer first, so they'll come to a place of our choosing. Jowston Hill, I think. And when their delegates arrive, we'll ask for their unconditional surrender."

"Surrender to us, after they defeat Luca?" Leon says, too sour to be deadpan. "I've never known a commander to see the reason in that."

_Riou wants this war to end as quickly as possible, too,_ Jowy thinks, but doesn't bother saying it. Maybe Riou will agree. Maybe Riou will realize that his role is done, that he and Nanami and Pilika can live in peace at last, that they can even return to the dojo and Kyaro and reopen it once the divisions between Jowston and Highland fade away. Maybe. The back of his hand throbs, fierce as a second heartbeat.

"Then we'll have to surround them the way we will Luca," he says.

"That doesn't sound like unification to me."

"What does it sound like?" he asks, though the spike in the pulse of his Rune tells him the answer.

"If you're going to conquer Jowston, you can't mince words and call it unification. At least, not to yourself. And not to me. Tell the troops whatever will make them fight for you, but don't delude yourself. Even if they only accomplish it because of our intelligence, they're the ones that will kill Luca, not you. You're in no position to ask them to surrender."

"Will I be in a position to—" He stops, closes his eyes, swallows. "Force them to?"

When he opens them again, Leon sighs, glances at Jowy's hand and then the rising dust down the path. "What's to stop them from forcing you? If you're really bent on unification, why not surrender to them over Luca's dead body?"

"I wish I could," he says, and something sparks deep in his chest, something that hasn't kindled for—no. No, there's no use thinking like that anymore. "But Riou won't do what I will, or what has to be done. He'll let Highland continue on, and Jowston, and all of Jowston's states. I—can't let that happen. I can't let him clean all of this up." The dust billows, starts to drift into Jowy's hair, nose, throat. "He brings people together. He always has. I always envied it. But sometimes people won't be brought together willingly. That's what you've been trying to tell me all along, I think."

On the horizon, the sun glints off the armor of the first wave of Harmonians, marching in strict formation, deacons and bishops at the heads of their companies. Leon puts his hand against the post and stays, this time, watches them arrive.

"If you hadn't figured it out by now, I'm sure Harmonia would teach you," Leon says.

There isn't anything to say to that, so Jowy doesn't. 

The man at the head of Harmonia's column draws into view. No, _man_ isn't right, is it? His face hasn't lost its baby fat, and his eyes are as wide and bright as Marco's. But he's a bishop in spite of that, that's clear enough from the borders on his robes and the height of his hat. "Master Leon," he says. "It's a relief to see you, I must say. I was starting to fear that we'd never reach your camp."

Leon nods once in acknowledgment. "You have good timing, Sasarai."

Some of the bishop's—Sasarai's—men bristle at Leon's address, but if Sasarai himself objects, he doesn't show it. "I do try. Ah, your Highness," he adds, and shifts his smile to Jowy. "I should have greeted you sooner."

"I can't claim that title yet, your Eminence," Jowy says, because he has more chance of persuading the bishop than he does of convincing his soldiers.

"General Atreides, then." That's not right either, but there's no use belaboring the point. "How delightful to meet you. Master Leon's told me all about your exploits. Such a fascinating journey you've had."

_That's one way to describe it_ , Jowy thinks. It's the way that drips with the most condescension, at least.

"I simply must hear more," Sasarai continues, and lifts himself from his saddle, dismounts as though he expects the ground to catch him on the way down.

"Your Eminence," one of Sasarai's captains begins. 

Sasarai turns to him and blinks once, his smile perfectly even. The captain's mouth snaps shut. "Oh, go ahead without me and get settled in," Sasarai says, a hint of laughter threaded through his voice. "There are enough of us that it'll take some time, and I doubt the reception will begin until we've all assembled."

Well, it won't begin before Sasarai's there. How long does he mean to make Luca wait? If he's trying to show Luca his place in relation to Harmonia, it won't work. No diplomatic maneuver's capable of doing that, really.

"Besides, I've seen almost nothing of this charming little land before, and I'll hardly have a chance to look after we march out. Lord Luca doesn't seem the type to delay for anything."

Jowy translates: _to Harmonia, you're still a backwards province, and we accept your command because it amuses us to do so._ All right. He can work with that. "If it would please your Eminence to follow me, then," he says, with the slightest of bows.

 

"It would indeed. My legs are stiff as blocks from the ride. Ah, deacon, if you could lead the troops into Highland's camp? And do give my best to Lord Luca and his commanders."

Do all bishops act like this? He doesn't think so, but he hasn't seen one since he was six. Jowy turns away from the column and starts up a nearby hill, one far enough to the right of Harmonia's main force for some measure of privacy. There aren't any trees for spies to hide behind, just patches of scrubby grass, and the wind won't blow their voices towards Harmonia's troops. Or Jowy's own, for that matter. Sasarai walks slightly behind him, murmurs occasionally about the color of the sky and the coolness of the breeze. He doesn't seem to expect a response. That's fine.

"I did mean what I said about your countryside," he says at last, when they've almost reached the top of the hill. "I imagine it's even lovelier in times of peace."

"It is."

Sasarai smiles, tugs the band of his hat down. Without that hat, he's at least half a head shorter than Jowy. "I'm coming to you as a soldier, so no doubt this sounds strange, but I'd much rather spend an evening sitting on a hilltop like this one than charging down a foe."

"It isn't strange," Jowy says. He looks away. "Most soldiers fight for the hope of peace."

Sasarai laughs, light and charming. "And that's the strangest part of all." His laughter trails off. When Jowy looks at him, he's gazing at the Highland camp like he's searching for a speck almost too small to see. "Is that what you fight for, General Atreides?"

"Yes."

"Mm. And what of the rest of Highland's army?"

"If the war ended tomorrow," Jowy says, "most of them would go home as fast as they could." Even Seed and Culgan, probably. Seed might complain about being bored out of his skull, but Jowy can picture him happy enough in charge of a garrison at Highland's border, chasing down bandits when he couldn't stand staying inside any longer. Jowy imagines Culgan riding out beside Seed, sighing just loudly enough for the sound to carry, and can't help smiling a little.

"Most," Sasarai agrees, "but not all. And it does tend to be those in command who spurn peace, doesn't it? Otherwise we'd all meet over bargaining tables instead of battlefields."

So he's coming to the point. Good. "What has Master Leon told you?"

"That you intend to become king, of course."

Jowy glances over his shoulder, but no one's there: no spies from Luca, no troops from Harmonia ready to arrest him for treason. "It's complicated," he finally says, closes his hand into a fist. His Rune pulses, but only once; after that, a low warmth spreads out from it steadily.

"Isn't it always? I'd certainly imagine so. But you needn't worry about me." The more innocuous Sasarai's smile, the less Jowy trusts it, and right now he's smiling the way Pilika used to when Jowy tucked her in. He swallows.

"His Holiness hasn't dispatched me to bring back your head," Sasarai continues. "Quite the opposite, in fact."

"So Harmonia doesn't intend to contest my claim?" he asks, his voice as level as he can make it. It's the last piece he needs. Once it's in place, once the plan is in motion—his Rune flashes hot for a moment, and he grits his teeth.

"Well, the circumstances are—unusual, shall we say? Normally you wouldn't be in line for the throne at all. His Holiness entrusted the governance of Highland to Maroux Blight and his bloodline, and you'll only be a Blight by marriage. Were something to befall Lord Luca before he sired children—oh, there's no need to stare at me like that, I know just as well as you do how unlikely that is, but I thought I ought to mention it." Sasarai's smile doesn't waver. "If Lord Luca dies without an heir, then rulership of Highland would pass to Lady Jillia, and you'd serve as her prince consort, not as king."

Sasarai pauses, tilts his head to the side like he's deep in thought, taps his knuckle against his chin to complete the picture. But the corner of his mouth twitches upwards, and Jowy wonders how widely Sasarai really wants to smile, how many of his teeth he wants to put on display.

"Then again," he says, "I suppose the throne has to pass to _someone_. And trying to hunt down royal bastards would only complicate the issue further, at this stage."

Heat flares behind Jowy's eyes this time, not from his Rune. His nails bite into his palm, sharp and hard, and the pressure reminds him that it's a stupid idea to punch a Harmonian bishop, no matter how much he's itching to. But he has no right to smirk about Jillia like that. None at all. She isn't some kind of a joke that the gods played on Agares Blight.

"Where does that leave me?" he asks when he feels like speaking again.

"In surprisingly good standing," Sasarai says. "His Holiness is willing to see you appointed as the next King of Highland. If Lady Jillia renounces her claim to the throne in your favor, of course."

"Of course," Jowy echoes. But she will. She as good as told him that. A knot hardens in his chest. He didn't have to force her into it, he reminds himself. And he won't. 

"Frankly, your presence makes resolving this situation much easier. His Holiness gave the Blights this land to protect, not to ruin. And when we realized Lord Luca's intent—well, none of the options before us at the time seemed very neat," Sasarai says, laces his fingers together. "We think this solution is quite satisfactory. I imagine you do, too."

"It'll do," Jowy says. Sasarai's right; it's better than the others.

***

Radat puts up no resistance at all. The citizens stare up blearily at Jowy as he rides through the main street and make no sound. Not cheers, not cries of outrage, not even sullen grumbles. How many times has Radat changed hands, now? They must not know either.

"You think Windamier and his men cleaned out the tavern the last time they were here?" Seed asks from Jowy's right. "Because I could eat a griffin."

"You and the griffins," Culgan says—just as a chirp rings out from somewhere in the crowd. Out of the corner of his eye, Jowy looks for the source of the sound. There: it's coming from underneath a man's cloak, and that man is backing away from the crowd, sprinting down one of the alleys. 

"Culgan," Jowy says. It's all he needs to. Culgan nods, passes off his horse's reins to another captain and dismounts, works his way through the gathering. For a man of his size he's eerily silent when he wants to be, and he slips through gaps between people that shouldn't be large enough for a child, let alone him.

Seed scowls, blows air out through his nostrils like a horse. "Why him?"

"Because you're bringing Master Leon to me. And a scrivener, too, one who's good at forgery. I have an idea."

"You and your ideas." Seed swings off his horse, too, shakes himself a little as he hits the ground. "You really should've sent Culgan after the old man, though."

"You know where to find the forgers."

"Heh." Seed holds up his hands, grins. "All right, got me there. Where's headquarters?"

Headquarters, as it turns out, are on the top floor of the inn, in a room overlooking Radat's gate. Jowy's just finished rolling out a map of Southwind across the table when Culgan knocks, hauls the cloaked man in after him.

"The turncoat," the cloaked man says, and spits at Jowy's feet.

He's heard worse. "What did you find?" he asks Culgan.

In response, Culgan hands him a slip of paper. "This. He was tying it to the nasal's leg."

Jowy unrolls it. _Highland's Third Company has reoccupied Radat_ , it says, and estimates their troop strength fairly well.

"Try and delay the news all you like," the cloaked man says, "but Lord Shu and Lord Riou will know you're here, and they'll beat your treacherous hide back to L'Renouille."

"We'll see," Jowy says. He can't shred the paper in his hand, no matter how tightly his fingers seize around it. He needs it.

Seed shoulders the door open, and Jowy's spared from having to say anything further. "I'll send the old man up and take this one down." He grabs the cloaked man by the shoulder. "Unless you still need him."

"Not him." Jowy hands the note back to Culgan. "Just that. Let the forger study it."

"They'll see through your tricks," the cloaked man calls, but Seed says, "Oh, shut up," and shoves him back through the door, Culgan following behind.

"We'll see," Jowy says again, though the closed door blocks the sound. He returns to the table, flattens a scrap of paper on it, and writes: _Highland's Third Company has reoccupied Radat. Their archers have made camp in the forest to the north. Proceed with caution._

The door clicks open, and Leon steps through. "A message?" he asks.

Jowy passes the scrap to him. "For the Unicorn Army. I'll have the forger copy it over in that spy's handwriting."

"Hm. It could be worse," Leon says. Coming from him, that's good as the most florid praise.

Jowy circles back to the table, plants his index finger on the ridge southwest of Radat. "Whatever expeditionary force they send will have to travel this way, to avoid our imaginary archers. Our real archers will be in position on this ridge. If we cut off the Unicorn Army's retreat to the south and reinforce our position in the north, we'll trap them against the river."

Leon nods. "Have you anticipated how they'll react?"

"They'll be shaken, hopefully. And there's something else." He slides his finger to the Northwind peninsula, taps it once. "The Unicorn Army had inferior numbers when they defeated Solon Jhee and Kiba Windamier, and barely anyone at all when they infiltrated Greenhill and rescued Teresa Wisemail."

Leon nods again.

"They aim for the commanders. They know they don't have the strength to face Highland head-on, but if they concentrate all their might on one opponent and ambush them…"

"There are worse strategies," Leon says. "And it's easy enough to turn that one to our advantage." He pauses. "In a way, it's not entirely dissimilar to our own."

He closes his eyes. "No. I suppose it isn't."

***

"My," Sasarai says, lowers his spyglass and clasps his hands together around it in delight. "It looks as though they've sent General Ridley himself! What a treat."

"Too bad it's gonna be quick," Seed says. He shifts in his saddle. "They in position yet?"

Jowy raises his own spyglass. "Almost. It looks like our scout's estimates were right. He doesn't seem to have more than one infantry unit, and almost all of them are kobolds." He unfolds the scout's report, glances at it again. Not many pikemen, either, and kobold spears don't have the same reach that their own do. It's almost too easy. Has the Unicorn Army set a counter-trap? His fist tenses and he forces it to ease, one finger at a time. No. They can't have anticipated this. As much as the Unicorn Army likes ambushes, they couldn't have placed traps in this area without Jowy's scouts spotting them.

"Is everything all right?" Culgan asks, his voice pitched for Jowy's ears alone.

"Yes." He lifts his spyglass again. Ridley's troops are rounding the ridge, the rearguard almost in view. They hold their lines well as they march, as though someone's setting a rhythm for them to walk to.

But there isn't any time to admire that. "Give the signal," he says, and one of his mages sends a spark into the sky, bright enough to pierce the thickest clouds.

Highland's archers appear at the top of the ridge, release a storm of arrows before most of Ridley's troops have the chance to look up. Jowy isn't sure how many of them fall, but it's enough to make some of the soldiers scatter, scramble behind any rocks that might provide them cover. Ridley wheels around, barks order that Jowy can't hear. Then again, not all of Ridley's troops can hear him, either. The archers fire at will now, and no matter how hard the kobolds run east, enough arrows find marks. 

Sasarai sighs."It looks like my troops might have to wait another day before they have the conflict they were promised. Oh well. It's hardly as though this is over, isn't it?"

His tone's too light for that question not to have another meaning. It doesn't matter. Jowy has no time to rise to the bait.

The last of Ridley's remaining troops straggle out of range of the archers—and in range of Highland's cavalry. Ridley rallies his soldiers and much as he can, tries to make them reform their lines to hold back the horses. But his pikemen don't reach their positions in time and the cavalry smashes through their ranks, tramples them underfoot. From this distance it's difficult to make out all the details, but Jowy doesn't have to. He remembers.

"Hey, looks like the general's not down just yet," Seed says, and Jowy casts his spyglass around. Sure enough, Ridley wades into the thick of the melee, kicks back one attacker with a snarl and nearly cleaves another one from collarbone to navel. The cavalry starts to form a ring around him, to pen him in, but he breaks through before the circle closes and rushes away, towards some of his soldiers who haven't fallen yet.

Sasarai clucks his tongue. "He wasted his opportunity to escape."

"He'd never take it," Jowy says.

Sasarai gives a one-shouldered shrug. "Well, he can do as he likes. It's on his head, after all."

Highland's cavalry rallies in almost no time at all. Before Ridley finishes dispatching a few soldiers who've fallen from their mounts, the cavalry wheels towards Ridley again and encircles him. Even Ridley can't break through that many pikes pointed at his throat.

It's impossible to make out exactly what words Ridley and Highland's captain exchange. Whatever it is, it ends in Ridley's sword being knocked from his hand, and soldiers binding Ridley's wrists behind his back.

"It looks like my men will have to wait a little longer for some excitement," Sasarai says, but he doesn't sound put off.

"Not much longer," Jowy says, and Sasarai's smile twists up at the corner.

***

Even weaponless, with his arms bound, Ridley carries himself in a way that commands respect. Luca must pay it some notice, however slight, because his sneer isn't quite as disdainful as usual. He doesn't even cuff Ridley with the hilt of his sword when he crosses to him. "Ha. Your friends have run away and left you," Luca says. "It serves you right."

"It was the logical choice, if you weigh my life against the survival of the Unicorn Army," Ridley says, his glare unwavering.

Luca snorts, turns away. "No matter. Soon I'll see the Unicorn Army crushed before my very eyes." He settles his hand over his sword-belt but doesn't draw his blade just yet. It's hungering for something that isn't here, Jowy knows. "That brat will bow before me like the lowly mongrel he is."

Leon is standing opposite Jowy, and it doesn't take a genius strategist to work out what it means when he narrows his eyes like that. _Let it pass._

Jowy doesn't shift his expression at all. It's the best way to show he's received the message.

"The Unicorn Army won't be defeated!" Ridley shouts. "Lord Riou will never be vanquished by the likes of you!"

"Take him away!" Luca shouts back, not to be drowned out, and twists his mouth up. "I'll see his head lined up next to the son of Genkaku's!"

_No you won't, you bastard_ , Jowy thinks before he can stop himself, and his Rune seethes in agreement. _He'll take yours and leave it for the crows to eat_ —

Almost imperceptibly, Leon shakes his head. It's enough to remind Jowy to slow his breathing, pull his Rune's power back as much as he can. Did anyone else see? Seed and Culgan and Sasarai aren't glaring in his direction, and for once Luca's focused his attention on Leon instead of Jowy. "Well, Radat's ours," he says. "Would your strategy still have us take Southwind?"

Leon shakes his head—visibly, this time. "With this many troops, we hardly need a strategy. The next battle should decide this. And we've a new general to replace Windamier, so there's no need to worry."

They do? It's the first Jowy's heard of it, and he has to stop himself from doing a double-take.

"He seems strong, but I haven't the damndest idea who he is," Luca says. "Where did you find him?"

"I've known of him for some time, and thought his strength might prove useful, so I summoned him here."

There's something about the way he says _summoned_ that makes the base of Jowy's spine tighten, but now's certainly not the time to ask.

"Good enough." Luca shrugs. "As long as a sword is sharp, it doesn't need a fine lineage. Well, send him in. The rest of you are dismissed—except for you," he adds, and without turning to look Jowy knows it's directed at him. "I want a word with you."

"Yes, your Majesty," Jowy says. What else can he?

"I'm in a generous mood today, so Southwind is yours to retake. When you've finished crushing those vermin, rejoin me. If there's still a battle to be fought, that is." His smirk grows broader. "Heh. The son of Genkaku's head should fly high once my blade meets his neck, don't you think?"

_No_. "As your Majesty says."

Luca's eyes narrow. "Hmph. That whelp is barely larger than my dear sister, and I could snap _her_ neck in half with my bare hands. I won't," he says before Jowy can respond. "You have to marry her, and you can't well marry a corpse. Will you kill her, after you've gotten what you wanted from her?"

It should be easy to say no to that. Jowy looks down, says nothing at all.

"Keep your secrets." Luca draws his sword an inch from his scabbard, slams it back into place. "For now. Dismissed."

Jowy bows. Bowing means he doesn't have to look up from the ground. And he doesn't take his eyes from it as he walks back from Luca's tent, through the cookfires and smithies and messes, until he almost collides with Leon.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"Don't apologize. Just watch where you're going."

"What news?" he asks, once they've ducked behind an empty tent. In this light, if anyone draws near, he'll see their shadows on the canvas before they get close enough to overhear.

"Sasarai knows," Leon says. "Our new general knows as much as he needs to."

"You'll introduce me to him soon, won't you?"

"It can't be avoided." He pauses. "But you should wait until he's somewhere where he can't smell blood."

It's windless out, but the hair at the back of Jowy's neck stirs.

"If Luca escapes tomorrow," Leon continues, "I've made other arrangements. But it's better that I make them, not you. If you do it, it could compromise this, and we can't have that now."

"There are many things we can't have."

"Indeed."

***

The Unicorn Army almost entirely fell back from Southwind. Their remaining troops ride off and ride fast when Jowy's forces approach. He doesn't bother chasing them down. In all likelihood they were only here to tell the Unicorn Army's strategist exactly when Highland showed up.

There's no use settling in here, so Jowy puts a skeleton force at the gates and in the streets and doesn't bother to properly set up camp. The last bird Leon sent him said that Luca's company was advancing towards the Cave of the Wind, with Sasarai and the new general bringing up the rear. Jowy spots another nasal winging towards him now. Good. He unfastens the message from his leg, rolls it out. 

_Luca spotted Windamier. He's chasing him down like a man possessed._

As they expected. He draws a thread of power from the Fire Rune on his left hand, and the letter crumbles to ash. Culgan's told him to get a Rage rune affixed instead, that he has the aptitude for it, but he suspects it's hard to get the same kind of fine control with one of those. "We'll continue northwest," he says, but doesn't tell the Third Company to pick up their speed. If they're lucky, Sasarai and the new general won't catch up with Luca for a while, either.

Minutes stretch on. If he strains, he thinks he hears horses thundering in the distance, mixed shouts and the hiss of spellfire.

Then the wind whips past Jowy faster than he thought possible. 

He clings to his horse's reins, flattens himself against his saddle, but his horse staggers under him from the force of the wind. Fragments of his men's voices reach him, broken up by the gale surrounding them all. The wind sears the corners of his eyes, peels his eyelids back so he can't blink his tears away. What is this? What happened? His Rune scorches the back of his hand and his horse rears away from the heat—or tries to. The wind's shriek reaches a new pitch and his horse whinnies in wide eyed terror and buckles.

Cursing, he frees his feet from the stirrups in time to roll away before his horse collapses on top of him. At least his horse is alive. Probably. Crawling over to it and resting his hand on its flanks to see if it's still breathing is next to impossible when the wind rips at him, claws at his hand like it's trying to pry his Rune loose, slices his skin in a thousand places at once.

It stops as suddenly as it started. Jowy blinks, tries to stand, but he still hasn't replaced all the breath that was torn from him and he sways, nearly falls. "What _was_ that?" he finally manages. No one answers. Everyone around him is emerging from a daze, righting themselves slowly. He glances behind him. The front was the worst hit, it seems. Farther back, the men mill around in confusion, but no one's shouting in panic.

"Form up," Jowy calls, strokes his horse's shivering flanks and scans the skies. They have no right to be so clear after something like that tore through them. No sign of any nasals bringing explanations with them, either, but what bird could fly through that?

Wait. Someone's approaching, riding in desperate and unsteady rhythm. The column coming towards Jowy's forces barely looks like one: the men form a straggling line, and some of them peel off and collapse by the wayside from sheer exhaustion. Sasarai rides at their head, if it can be called that, his face pale and drawn enough that he looks ten years older.

"What happened?" Jowy asks.

It takes Sasarai several seconds to blink, raise his eyes. "The True Wind Rune," he says, his voice hoarse. "I thought it was lost to us, but—" He shakes his head. "We're fortunate this many of us escaped."

So Riou has other True Runebearers. How did he—it's useless to ask, Jowy doesn't know enough to guess the answer. He lowers his voice. "What about his Majesty?"

"Encircled by the Unicorn Army, last I saw, but still standing." Sasarai sags in his saddle, fumbles for the canteen at his side. Jowy hands him his own, and he drinks like a man dying of thirst. "He brushed off their fire spears as though they were nothing."

"I'm not surprised," Jowy says, his mouth set.

Sasarai's smile is back, if faint. "It makes me very much wonder whether certain rumors that have filtered to Harmonia are true—that he's a demon cloaked in human skin."

Jowy looks down. "He's monstrous. But he's human."

For once, Sasarai doesn't have a ready response to that.

Jowy raises his voice. "Bring the healers, quickly. All units halt until I give the signal to move."

"Your Highness," one of his captains says, and flinches before he gets out the rest. "What about the rendezvous with his Majesty's forces?"

"His Majesty's doing well for himself, apparently, and he has the Fourth Company for support. I won't have it said that Highland leaves its allies to die on the side of the road."

"Your Highness," the captain says again. There might be a note of true respect in his voice now. He wonders how long he can count on that.

The healers make it to the head of the column quickly enough, ushered by Seed and Culgan, and get to work. Jowy dismounts and joins the healers, bandages lighter wounds and passes out salves. Anything to keep his hands busy.

There's nothing to do but wait, he reminds himself. Either the Unicorn Army takes Luca's head now or they don't and he and Leon fall on their backup plan. His hand won't hold the blade that brings Luca down at last. Not directly, at least. He's waited this long, he can wait a few hours more.

Or fewer, judging from the troops surging over the horizon. Highland's standard flutters in the front. Jowy holds his breath.

Luca rides at their head, taking point in the vanguard, and the air in Jowy's lungs almost turns solid, suffocating. Blood coats his face, drips from his hair, splatters his armor. Even his horse's flanks are stained red, matted with gods know what else. What did he _do_? 

The bandage he was unrolling slips from his hand, but it doesn't matter. The healers aren't moving, either.

Luca makes no move to stop his horse, even when he's almost upon them. Is he so caught up in the smell of blood that he'll cut down anything in front of him, including his own men? But he pulls his horse up just before he tramples a healer to death. "Was that the best those puling little pigs could throw at me?" he shouts. "Ha! Look how many of them bled themselves dry on my blade!"

He holds it up. Blood and hair cling to his sword, and other things Jowy would rather not think about. The White Wolves cheer behind him, and from the volume of the sound their numbers have thinned since they rode out this morning. Luca cuts them off with a downward sweep of his sword, glares at Jowy. "You! Are you a nursemaid or a general?"

Sweat is streaked across Jowy's forehead, but he doesn't wipe it dry. His own hands are caked and crusted over with enough blood and there's no reason to smear it all over his face. "His Eminence's forces suffered heavy losses, your Majesty. I thought we should do what we could for those that were left.

"And you offer out of the goodness of your heart, eh?" Luca grins. Blood trickles between the gaps in his teeth. Jowy shouldn't watch it. "Ha. Don't pretend to kindness you don't have." He turns from Jowy, addresses the rest of the front of the column. "If a little wind is enough to stop these men, they're of no use to me. Let those who can stand, stand. The bishop can decide what to do with the rest."

"We must think on this," Sasarai says. "His Holiness did not know that the True Wind Rune was held by the Unicorn Army, and he may send different orders—"

"What good did their precious True Rune do? I still ripped through them." Luca makes a noise of pure disgust. "Get out of my sight. And you," he adds to Jowy, "pick yourself off the ground and get your troops to make camp properly. I don't want to see soldiers milling around in the grass like sheep. It's pathetic." With that, he snaps his horse's reins and wheels right, riding for a bluff nearby.

He lived. He laughed in the face of a True Rune that brought down one of Harmonia's strongest bishops and shrugged off the attacks of twenty thousand men. If he weren't human, it would be much easier to explain.

Thinking like this won't help. Jowy refocuses. The ranks of the soldiers most loyal to Luca have been thinned, and he doubts Luca will bother to replace them before he attacks next. In fact—Jowy remembers the slaughter at the mercenary fort, how Luca forced his soldiers to resume their attack almost immediately after they'd retreated. He'll do that again. He'll push forward before the Unicorn Army recovers, and crush them all. 

The sequence unfolds in front of Jowy like a play. Highland has Kuskus under its control. If a detachment of their soldiers sails into Northwind's harbor under cover of darkness and destroys Northwind's ships, that peninsula becomes a trap instead of an advantage. With Luca cutting off their escape to the south, they'll have nowhere to retreat, and Luca can kill them all in one stroke.

Unless the Unicorn Army springs the trap on Luca instead.

***

Leon's one of the last to ride into camp, and Jowy does his best not to barrel headlong into him. Seed and Culgan notice, too, and stand guard without looking like they're doing it outside the tent Jowy and Leon duck into.

"Did the Unicorn Army surround Luca?" Jowy asks.

"They did. He broke through." There's a grim edge to Leon's voice. "I swear he isn't human."

"You're the one who told me he was."

Leon is silent, glowering. It was a cheap shot on Jowy's part, but he doesn't apologize for it, Instead, he says, "I think I know what he's planned next."

"He's planning a night raid."

So he was right. "You're sure?"

"I suggested it. And I sent a message to their strategist, informing him of the same."

"Lord Ridley's alive?"

"Yes. I would have brought him myself, but the Unicorn Army's strategist staged a rescue of his own. Lord Ridley should be at Northwind by now."

Well, Leon was right. Jowy couldn't have freed Ridley without compromising himself, Still Leon could have let him in on this sooner. "If he's attacking under cover of darkness, he won't be stupid enough to signal his position with torchlight. I'm sure the Unicorn Army will have scouts, but if we lure him to a clear point of ambush, and signal the Unicorn Army from there—"

He pauses. Yes. Yes, that'll do. That's only fitting.

He kneels by his bedroll, draws the knife at his side, slits one of the seams open. Pilika's amulet tumbles onto the ground, and he brushes his fingers over it, clutches it to his chest. He promised he'd pay Riou back for helping him buy this. This counts, in a way. He can't bring himself to smile at the thought. Instead, he grips the amulet tighter, remembering. Lifting Pilika up so she could dust the highest shelves and earn her chore money—he volunteered to dust it himself, but she wouldn't let him. Washing off her knee after she skinned it, and telling her that it was okay to cry if it hurt, people are supposed to cry when things hurt. Promising her that he'd come back from Muse soon, brushing Nanami off when she told him how cute he was with kids, and watching Riou try not to smile.

But those memories are only shadows cast by the past now. There's nothing left of them that he can touch. 

"Use this," he says quietly, and holds the amulet out to Leon. "It opens. You can put something inside that'll give off light."

"I'll have the new general go. He'll reach Northwind faster than either of us could."

Jowy wonders when Leon plans to tell him this new general's name, or anything else about him, but nods.

"Sasarai's been recalled to Harmonia. His injuries were worse than he realized. He sends his regrets on not being able to attend your coronation, but assures you that you still have Harmonia's support."

"I'd hate to lose it now."

"After you take the throne, there's an acquaintance of mine you should meet. She's a skilled warrior, with equally skilled warriors under her command, and she has no love for Jowston." Leon straightens, adjusts his scarf. "We'll discuss that in more detail later. Rest, while you have the chance. We have a long night ahead of us."

"We do," Jowy agrees. He holds the edge of his bedroll but doesn't stretch it out, and Leon doesn't seem inclined to press the matter. With one last nod, he leaves.

Which means that Seed pokes his head in scant moments later, with Culgan behind him. "So I guess you know what his Majesty's up to, huh."

Jowy inclines his head. "Does he know that Lord Ridley escaped?"

"Nah, the old man told his Majesty that they beheaded the guy." Seed draws a line across his throat for emphasis. "Said they lost the head in the confusion with that Rune, though, and I guess his Majesty didn't have time to press the issue too much."

"Will you be accompanying him tonight?" Culgan asks.

"From a distance, I think." Jowy curls his fist tighter around the bedroll. "I need to make sure."

"Heh, can't blame you for that." Seed rolls out his shoulders, but his expression's less carefree than the gesture is. "We'll get everything in order over here while you're out. There's a couple real pieces of work we might need to have a little heart-to-heart with before you get back, but if the gods are on our side most of them'll follow his Majesty where he's headed."

"And Highland will be better off for it," Culgan adds.

_But will Highland really be better off with me_? Jowy wants to ask. He doesn't. Seed and Culgan's presence here is their answer to that. Whether or not he deserves it, he has it. He gets to his feet, looks at them both. "Thank you," he says. There's so much he should add, but his throat stalls before the words form.

"Our swords have been yours since the day we pledged them to you, your Majesty," Culgan says. "And they'll be yours until we can no longer draw them."

"So keep us sharp," Seed says, "and use us well." He bows deep at the waist, and Culgan follows suit. "The old man probably told you to rest already, right? Well, he's right about that shit sometimes, even if you're not going to do it."

"Regardless, you should try," Culgan says. "Good night, your Majesty."

They leave, and for long enough after that, Jowy doesn't move.

It will happen tonight. Luca could win even with the Unicorn Army forewarned, or at least escape to fight another day. But something hums deep in his bones, the way it did when he and Riou entered that cave, or when he and Riou joined hands and jumped into the river. The path is in front of him, and he's compelled down it as much as he's walking it.

With Luca gone, the path becomes his. The war becomes his.

He shoves aside the tent flap and walks into the twilight.

***

Whoever cleaned Luca's armor did a poor job. Dried blood sticks to the filigree, and the outlines of the worst stains still stand out. Luca doesn't seem to care much. He hasn't bothered to wash most of the blood out of his hair, either. "It's a waste of time," he says after Jowy points it out. "I'll bathe in their blood again soon, and there's no point in prettying myself up for that. Now hurry up. It shouldn't take this long to fasten a damned buckle."

"As your Majesty says." He cinches the last buckle on this cuisse tight, and it closes with a click.

"Now get the rest."

Jowy nods, rises, fetches Luca's cuirass from the table next to him. It's lighter than it looks but still heavy enough, and Jowy's shoulders twinge from the strain.

"Solon Jhee was a cowardly little fool," Luca says. "A gnat could come up with a better plan than his for taking that peninsula. Pah. I'll show his corpse how it's done."

_You'll join him in his grave_ , Jowy thinks, keeps his face as blank as ever. Luca might not be able to see his expression from where he's standing, but he can read every flinch, every shift in Jowy's posture. Jowy resolves not to show him anything. "Then it might have been for the best, your Majesty. If he defeated them, you wouldn't have the chance now to do it personally."

Luca barks out a laugh; when Jowy turns to look at him, he's clutching his side as though it's the best joke he's heard in years. "Ha! Well said! Sometimes I have to wonder whether that tongue of yours is forked or silver."

"Is that a compliment?"

"It is what you make of it." He lets go of his side, beckons Jowy closer with a sharp flick of his wrist. "Come here with that, I didn't summon you so you could dawdle all day."

"Of course." He needs to perch on the balls of his feet to lift the cuirass over Luca's head, chestplate and backplate and the pauldrons attached to both. The armor fits Luca seamlessly, like a layer of skin. He's noticed that before, but it seems even more relevant now. Will arrows be enough to pierce it, or does the Unicorn Army have other plans in place to take him down? It has to be the latter, especially after their defeat earlier today.

"That old fool let those vermin swarm for far too long," Luca continues as Jowy settles the cuirass into place, adjusts the straps connecting chestplate to backplate. The backplate curves around Luca's shoulderblades, leaves them free to move.

The knife hangs on Jowy's hip. If he keeps his movements steady and measured, doesn't tense or hesitate, he could slip that knife into the gap between shoulderblade and backplate. The blade is fine enough to pass between Luca's ribs. Jowy wouldn't need to call on the Unicorn Army, then.

No. If Luca dies while Jowy's the only other person in his tent, Luca's followers will run him through before he can think of an excuse. They remember Anabelle, too.

"And when vermin hole themselves up in a nest, you burn them all out." Luca's shoulders shake; he's laughing again, lower this time. "Don't tell me you haven't done that! Don't tell me you haven't taken a torch to a colony of maggots or a den of rats."

Jowy's hands stall on the straps. "Our servants did that, your Majesty," he begins, but Luca cuts him off with a wave of his hand.

"Don't give me a coward's excuse, younger brother. You know I despise those."

Jowy secures the buckle he was working on, swallows. "I know."

"Bring me my vambraces and gauntlets, and for hell's sake be quick about it this time. My sword needs to drink its fill tonight."

He's faster this time. Luca fastens one vambrace into place while Jowy works on the other. It's strange. He did this often enough when he first came here, but he hasn't been called on to do it in—a month? Two months? Longer than that? His sense of time isn't what it used to be.

"What will you do after you defeat the Unicorn Army?" he asks.

"Catch all the rats who try to escape and drown them," Luca says. His gauntleted hand flexes, clicking, like he's wringing the life out of an invisible neck. "Then we join our forces with that fat shit in Matilda, punish Greenhill for their insolence, and bring those dogs in Tinto to heel."

He shouldn't ask. What does it matter? After tonight, Luca won't be able to carry through with any of this. "And after that?"

Luca smiles, slow and edged and cruel. Jowy's learned Luca's smiles well enough, but he can't place when he last saw this one. It's not the smile he wears when he kills; it might be the smile of knowing he can, and will. "We purge the world of every hateful thing that crawls on it."

Jowy doesn't need to ask what, or who, those hateful things are. He pulls on Luca's other gauntlet in silence.

Luca's cloak goes on last, and Jowy's almost finished fastening it around his neck when Luca pries his hand away. "You've had long enough to think on it," he says, "and now I want to know. Tell me how it felt to kill the sow of Muse."

As soon as Jowy closes his eyes the memories rush back, twist through his stomach and squeeze his throat. _You dropped your guard, boy!_ , she said, and rushed at him with the broken glass—his heart pounded hard enough to make his skull hurt and he wanted to throw up and he knew he couldn't but when he raised the knife he didn't blink, didn't try to parry the glass or knock it from her hand. He shoved the knife in right below where her ribs met, where she wasn't guarding herself.

"I didn't know what I was doing," he said. "But I did it anyway."

"There's the truth." Luca claps his hand on Jowy's shoulder. When Jowy opens his eyes, Luca stares straight into them. "And now you've learned, haven't you? Heh. I thought you would."

"I have," Jowy says. It's the last thing he'll say to Luca Blight.

***

It takes eighteen elite soldiers, two barrages of arrows, and all of Riou's strength to kill Luca Blight. He dies laughing.

The Unicorn Army permits the few remaining White Wolves to recover Luca's body, probably to stop any rumors about Luca's survival before they start. Jowy and Leon slip away and make it back to camp before the White Wolves do.

Nobody expects Jowy to shed tears for Luca when his body's brought before him, so he doesn't. He kneels next to him instead, stares at the armor he touched hours ago. Soot covers part of it, scorch marks from fire and lightning both. Blades chipped other pieces away, and blunter weapons dented the rest. Luca's body is feathered with more arrows than Jowy can count at first glance. One was smashed straight through his armpit, into his ribs. It must have punctured a lung, and brought him down at last.

Jowy's read that corpses smile in death, but Luca's smile is something different. _It took hundreds to kill me, but I've slain thousands!_ he remembers.

_Hundreds_ , he thinks. _And me_.

The knife's in Jowy's hand now. There's an empty sheath on Luca's sword-belt where it's supposed to fit. Jowy starts to slide it in—

No.

He tucks it back into the sheath at his side. By now, its weight on his hip is familiar.

Jowy will keep it, as a reminder to himself.

 

\---  
\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reiterating my thanks to [Mithrigil](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil/) for idea-bouncing, encouragement, and helping me Silverberg. Thanks also go out to [surskitty](http://archiveofourown.org/users/surskitty) for giving me a copy of the SII script and saving me from hours of poring over YouTube footage.


End file.
